LOCH AWE 159 



many bigger baskets, but never such a good average 

 weight per fish. The best sport is perhaps to be 

 obtained between Portsonachan and Ford, but I 

 have usually fished from the Loch Awe Hotel, 

 owing to the superiority of the scenery at that end 

 of the loch. 



What can be more delightful than a warm spring 

 day, with a soft westerly breeze, spent among the 

 islands of Loch Awe, trout rod in hand, amid the 

 varied and unceasing cries of the many sea-gulls 

 which wheel around, or lazily float on the surface 

 of the water. It is good to lunch on the Green 

 Island, where the gulls and curlews build, and 

 where the daffodils grow amongst the tombs of the 

 ancient Celtic burying-ground. Many fine trout lie 

 around its shores ; that bay to the southward, where 

 a solitary great boulder rears its head out of the 

 water, is a special favourite of mine. And if you 

 lunch there you can in the afternoon cross over to 

 the south side of the loch, and, if the wind be in 

 the west, drift up the Achlean shore, and so finish 

 up the day in Teatle Bay — or Ardteatle, as the 

 boatmen have it — where you stand a good chance 

 of landing a large fish to lay out on the tiled floor 

 of the porch when you get back to the hotel, for 



