CHAPTER XXIII 



THE RIVERS GRUINARD, EWE, AND 

 CARRON (W. ROSS) 



ANGLING SEASON : llth February to 31st October. 

 NETTING SEASON: llth February to 26th August. 



The Gruinard has a great reputation, and upon this I fear 

 it has nowadays to live. It is a little river which used to yield 

 great sport, and in spite of the difficulty of getting there, it 

 used to be much sought after. 



The fishable part of the river is 5f miles in length, being the 

 course of the stream from Loch-na-Sheallag to the sea. The 

 loch itself is 4f miles long, and 279 feet above sea-level. Above 

 the loch the stream which flows down from a higher hill loch of 

 small size, called Loch-an-Nid, which is really the source, is 

 about six miles, but it is so rocky and so small as to be no use 

 for salmon angling. 



One is here impressed by the feeling that for a small country 

 like our own, there are some very remote parts. Gruinard 

 Bay, with its large island, is a deep indentation of the coast. 

 Little Loch Broom is a long, narrow loch amongst great hills, 

 which enters the bay on the north. The Little Gruinard river 

 enters from the south, after its rough course from the Fionn 

 Loch. The whole country drained by the Strathbeg into Little 

 Loch Broom and by the Great and Small Gruinards, lies to the 

 western sea in a region of its own, shut off from the rest of the 

 world by a magnificent amphitheatre of mountains. Habi- 

 tations are few, the forests of Dundonnell, Gruinard, Inverewe, 

 and Fisherfield, with their bare rocky buttresses, high slopes, 

 and deep corries, form a natural home for the red deer, but do 

 not offer much support to man. The rainfall is copious, and 

 the little rivers often swell quickly into torrents, but at other 



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