8o ANGLING & ART IN SCOTLAND 



Old Izaak Walton considered all anglers to be 

 good fellows ; but there are some who afifirm that 

 they are all liars. There is certainly a temptation 

 to exaggerate the size of the fish one loses, from 

 the simple fact that you feel, if the exact truth be 

 told, the brother angler who listens will most 

 assuredly discount your statement. The fisher- 

 man is said to be constantly recounting stories of 

 the large fish he has lost ; but it may be said in 

 extenuation that for the one heavy fish that escapes, 

 and of which he tells you, he perhaps loses fifty 

 smaller ones of which he makes no mention ; so, 

 possibly, his narrations are not so untrue as is 

 sometimes supposed. 



I believe that day, with good fortune, we 

 might have had a fine basket, for the heaviest 

 class of trout were on the move ; but the wind 

 died quite away and the sun burst through the 

 light clouds, soon dispelling them ; — very delight- 

 ful, no doubt, but not what we required. The 

 water having become quite glassy, we gave up 

 the apparently hopeless task of casting, and I 

 took the oars and lazily rowed the boat along, 

 leaving my rod at the stern with not more than 

 six yards of line trailing behind. I had stopped 



