SALMON FLY, SPINNING LURE, ETC. 353 



after a hard day's elk stalking in the Namsen Lake country, 

 the following particulars of his record catch of salmon, 

 which bear directly on the possibility of taking fish when 

 every circumstance seems to be against you, and also on 

 the fact that salmon will " feed " whenever they enter any 

 new stretch of water on their up-stream journey. 



This cannot be attributed to that exhaustion which is 

 considered by many fishermen to account for the resuscita- 

 tionfor recuperative purposes of the feeding instincts of 

 the salmon, for in this instance the run was only a distance of 

 one mile, and their already decreasing appetites would still 

 have been on the wane ; but the destructive instinct seems 

 to me to offer a more feasible explanation of the freedom 

 with which they took the lures. 



Mr. Naylor, with Messrs. Hansard and Probyn, had taken 

 the fishing on the Grimersta River, on the island of Lewis, 

 N.B. ; but, owing to drought, the salmon could not run to 

 the upper water and the lochs. The river between these 

 lochs and the sea was " vera sma'," while seaward at 

 the mouth of the river an immense number of salmon had 

 collected ; some of these fish seen from the shore appeared 

 to be developing some disease on the head and body 

 fungus-like white patches beginning to show themselves 

 while large numbers were found dead at low-tide. It was 

 seen that unless rain came, the chances of the fish " running 

 up " were nil. 



It occurred to the party that in order to get the fish 

 to run and to save their lives (sic), it was necessary to deepen 

 the channel of the river as it left Loch Langlabat the head 

 loch of the river, and situated about nine miles from the 

 sea and that if a dam was made below the first of the four 

 smaller lochs which was about 100 acres in extent, and 

 within one mile of salt water a spate could be engineered 

 which would bring the fish up to the first loch. 



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