LOCH LOMOND 377 



feet high, through which rainbows played for a moment as the 

 sun flashed out and vanished. I recollect helping a friend to 

 take temperatures and lose thermometers in the 90 fathom 

 deeps of the loch on such a day. As the storm increased we 

 worked down to Inchtavanach Channel, below Luss, where I 

 broke first one oar and then another, and got blown on to the 

 island on each occasion. We were soaked to the skin with the 

 spindrift and breathless with the struggle, but by borrowing 

 an oar from a boat on the island we just managed to reach Luss 

 in a lull. 



In summer the hills are perhaps a trifle too green, for the 

 bracken is climbing to their tops and killing out the heather, 

 but on a quiet, lazy day the scene is sublime. When thunder 

 rumbles about in the distance, and the surface is calm as a 

 mirror, the powans or fresh-water herring, which inhabit this 

 loch in great numbers, show themselves in sporting shoals. 

 They are first cousins to the vendace of Lochmaben and the 

 pollen of Ireland, and are not only pretty to look at, but good 

 to eat, yet the angler's fly is no use to them. Even when they 

 are spluttering all round one's boat, I have failed to foul-hook 

 a single one, although it puzzled me to know how the hooks 

 missed, so thick were the fish. 



From the mouth of the river Falloch, which enters the head 

 of the loch and which has a fall a short distance up to the 

 lower end of the loch at Balloch is a distance of 21 miles. The 

 wide portion of the loch at its southern end, where the islands 

 are and where most of the fishing is carried on, is 4 miles across. 

 The long narrow section of the loch above Inversnaid has an 

 average breadth of three-quarters of a mile. The west side of 

 the loch is in Dumbartonshire, the east side in the county of 

 Stirling. Luss, just beyond the islands on the west side, is the 

 place where most of the boats are kept for fishing purposes, 

 since the best grounds can be most easily reached from this 

 point. A considerable number of boats are also, however, to 

 be found at Balloch, and by arrangement boats can be towed 

 by steam launch from here to the more distant parts of 

 the loch. Angling is free for salmon, sea-trout, and brown 

 trout. 



The records of the Loch Lomond Angling Association show 

 the following takes by the rod : 



