72 SALMON FISHING 



flood, and hardly ever extremely low ; but sometimes 

 the Tay is so small that in certain broad parts you 

 could wade across, and at other times it rises twelve 

 feet in as many hours. The Thames is within 

 stable banks ; those of the Tay are frequently 

 broken, and every flood makes changes in some of 

 its channels. Thus a stranger in Tayside must often 

 find himself at a loss. He may say to himself, "This 

 side-stream, much less rough than the main flow, 

 will hold some good trout," and then find, after 

 delicate casting of his flies, that evidently it holds 

 no trout at all. It would never occur to him 

 that, far from having been for ages as he finds it, 

 the side -stream was not there until a few weeks 

 before, when, being in violent mood, the Tay cleft 

 a few new bypaths for itself. On the other hand, 

 some of the side -streams, long -established ones, 

 yield excellent sport. Not far from Aberfeldy, for 

 example, 



The idiosyncrasies of the Tay, however, are so 

 many that I must do no more than suggest their 

 nature. Were I to dwell upon them in detail, I 

 should have to defer a pleasant task, which is to say 

 how we fared on the afternoon of March 1, 1905, 

 when the trout fishing season opened in Scotland. 



Miss Winsome and I had resolved to visit a 

 certain pool which in September had yielded us on 

 the average a brace of trout, usually about 2 Ib. each, 

 daily. Lest that should seem sport too mild for 

 consideration, it may be well to mention that until 

 that time Miss Winsome's part had been with the 



