THE UPPER BEATS 247 



he was stopping at to secure another and get to work again. 

 The remarkable thing was that in spite of the bold way in which 

 fish were taking, Buckley did not yield to the temptation which 

 would have seized most men to bring a stronger weapon and a 

 gillie, and so secure a phenomenal score. He returned to the 

 water with a 10 foot trout rod, and continued to use merely 

 trout tackle. By half -past seven he had landed 22, including 

 2 fifteen-pounders, and had lost only three. The banks of 

 the river here are abrupt, and the single-handed operation is a 

 matter of great difficulty, a deal of time being necessary to 

 coax fish to the net in deep water at the side of the river. 

 With strong tackle the time necessary to land each fish would 

 have been greatly reduced, and many more fish would have 

 been hooked. I have seen one or two accounts of this great day, 

 the best being a long letter written most modestly by Mr. 

 Buckley to Mr. Grimble and published in the latter's book on 

 The Salmon Elvers of Scotland. In this the writer says that his 

 reason for using a trout rod was because it " was more handy for 

 bringing the fish near to the gaff," and that when he saw the 

 fish so madly on the rise he recollected that the late Mr. Richard 

 Rutherford, the farmer of Kildonan, had once killed 21 fish, 

 mostly grilse, nf a day, so thought he would try to beat this. 

 It would appear that Buckley stopped when he had done so ; 

 but the total weight of his catch was 230 lb., or an average of 

 nearly 10 lb. a piece. With a grilse rod, he says, he might 

 perhaps have had 40 or 50 fish. Yet he preferred to stick to 

 the trout tackle. 



Higher scores have at times been made on several rivers, the 

 top score of all being, I think, Mr. Naylor's 54 salmon taken 

 from the first loch of the Grimersta in the Lewis (vide p. 312), 

 but I think all performances pale before Buckley's 22 fish, 

 averaging nearly 10 lb., and including 2 fish of 15 lb., landed 

 single-handed on trout tackle. 



