THE INCHARD 275 



employed, that the rentals increased materially in value, and 

 the take of fish in the sea was well maintained. 



Like the netting stations in the Pentland Firth, the fixed 

 nets on this coast usually take more grilse than adult fish. A 

 large number of sea-trout also occur on the coast, but these 

 are not taken in any numbers in bag nets, since they are able 

 to extricate themselves from an extended net of legal mesh, 

 unless they are large trout. 



The most important netting station on this coast is Clachtoll, 

 where in an ordinary year from three to six hundred salmon, 

 and two to three thousand grilse may be taken. Clachtoll is 

 in the Inver district, about half-way between the mouth of 

 the river and Rhu Stoer on the north. 



The particular features which determine a good or a bad 

 bag-net station are not much understood even by experienced 

 tacksmen, except that a shore with a southern exposure usually 

 fishes better than one looking to the north, that a wind along 

 the shore brings fish and that some places will not fish well 

 simply because tides and currents will not allow of the nets 

 standing properly. Apart from such general considerations, 

 good and bad places are simply found out by experience on this 

 west coast with its numberless lochs and creeks and islands, 

 and since grilse are chiefly expected, the full complement of 

 nets are not put in the water till the beginning of June. At the 

 same time, in the particular district referred to here, some 

 restriction is placed upon the number and positions of the nets. 



I may now describe the four rivers separately. 



RIVER INCHARD 



The main line of this river is north-west for barely five miles, 

 through two narrow little lochs called Garbh Bhaid Mhor, 

 corrupted into Garbet Mor, and Garbet Beg. The latter, i.e., 

 the smaller loch, is the nearer to the mouth of the stony, 

 boulder-strewn little river which flows into the head of Loch 

 Inchard at Rhiconich. The stream from the mouth to Garbet 

 Beg is barely a mile and a half in length. 



It is rather astonishing to read in a work much consulted by 

 anglers that the loch specially described by its name as small 

 and rough is three miles long, while the loch of the great rough 



