256 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



date. Clean fish run in the Thurso in November and December, 

 and even in October, I understand. Those fish must get up 

 into the loch before the severity of winter lowers the water 

 temperature and checks ascent. The same, I believe, happens 

 on the Naver. In both rivers practically no obstructions occur. 

 The earliest of the fish are reported to average from 15 to 25 Ib. 

 They have frequently been specially observed because some 

 doubt existed and exists as to their subsequent movements. 

 The late Mr. Dunbar was convinced that those very early fish 

 returned to the sea and reascended before spawning. The 

 obtaining of reliable evidence on this point is difficult, but 

 from the evidence of netsmen who work at the mouths of 

 rivers, and who not infrequently catch coloured fish, apparently 

 descending from fresh water, as well as from certain recaptures 

 of marked fish, I am inclined to the view that the descent of 

 spring fish and of fish at later seasons fish which have not 

 spawned is more common than is usually imagined. 



The reason why Loch More is not commonly fished till April 

 is not so much, perhaps, that it does not hold fish, or did not 

 hold fish, but that once boat fishing begins in the loch, men are 

 apt not to return to the river and fish it properly. I stoutly 

 contend that men should not prefer to cast from a boat in a 

 loch, but the fact remains that if more fish are to be had by 

 this plan men will forsake the river. To my mind the interest 

 of fishing a river from the bank or by wading is always superior 

 to fishing in the best of lochs. In the syndicate's time the 

 boat-house was kept rigidly locked till 1st April. That fish 

 were to be got, however, seems sufficiently clear from a story 

 told me by Sir Herbert Maxwell. A friend of his, being on one 

 occasion tired of fruitlessly flogging the river, which, owing to a 

 bright, dry January, had run down too low, walked up to Loch 

 More one day early in February. He and his gillie broke 

 open the boat-house and commenced fishing about 3 o'clock 

 in the afternoon. In an hour and a half he had killed 4 fish 

 weighing from 15 to 21 Ib. each. 1 



1 A series of Thurso temperatures, taken at Loch More, Dale, Thurso, 

 and in the sea, for the year 1886, will be found in the Journal Scottish 

 Meteorological Society, Series hi., No. iv., 1886. 



