LOCH FISHING. 47 



apt to work his flies to the top of the water, whilst the novice, perforce, 

 lets them sink ; and, as a rule, the deeper you sink your flies, within 

 reason, and the less you play them, the better. There is yet one more 

 drawback to loch fishing, and that is, that you are entirely at the mercy 

 of the wind — or, rather, of the want of wind. A still, glassy surface, 

 and your boat fisherman is done. May that not be because he is wedded 

 to his three or four flies fished wet ? Let him try a dry fly under 

 such circumstances ; not necessarily on the ordinary banks he is wont 

 to fish so sedulously, but rather in the bays and creeks and shallowing 

 water amongst the rushes. 



On one occasion, about four years ago, I was in Perthshire, on 

 the side of Loch Ard — that sweet loch, more beautiful in some respects 

 than far-famed Loch Katrine. It was in early May. A big competition 

 from busy Glasgow had put fourteen boats upon the loch, and some 

 eight-and-twenty men were ready with double-handed and single-handed 

 rods to measure their skill against each other. It was a lovely day, 

 not a ripple upon the water. Ben Lomond's tops were reflected in 

 the glassy mirror, so that it was hard to tell which was the original 

 and which the mirrored counterfeit. For some hours these boats had, 

 with precise and repeated regularity, drifted across the best ground 

 without the semblance of a rise, only to be rowed round again to follow 

 in the same procession. There is no doubt that their occupants were 

 sternly in earnest, and would leave no chance untried. A faint catspaw 

 of a ripple might secure a rise, or perchance a fish, but catspaws were 

 few and far between. Hour after hour the rods were plied with stolid 

 monotony, responseless and unnoticed. And, as the day wore on to 

 noon, the conditions remained unvaried, and the catspaws even ceased 

 to add a temporary and evanescent interest. 



About that time — noon — I, having nothing in particular to do, took 

 one of the gillies with me in a boat across the loch. He was astonished 

 to see me take a rod, and no doubt put me down as a mad-brained 

 Sassenach. Nevertheless I took my little cane-built Pope rod and a 

 box of Test flies I happened to have with me, and we pulled up the 

 loch and into one of the bays at the far end. There I bade him rest 

 on his oars, as we were slowly drifting along the scanty rushes that 

 grew out of the bed of the loch. I soon saw a fish or two move 



