x SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED 



in and near the tide, and steals up to the im- 

 memorial salmon casts of Makerstoun, Mertoun, 

 and Melrose, soon sickens in the noisome discharge 

 of dye-works and sewers, so that a summer flood, 

 which brought so much exultation to the heart 

 and work for the arms of Scrope, seldom rewards 

 the angler, unless it be the first of a continuous 

 high water. Strangely improvident, the Tweed 

 proprietors have hitherto attempted no effective 

 plan of artificial propagation to replenish a stock 

 seriously reduced by improved netting machinery, 

 by poaching in close time, and, worst of all, by 

 the destructive effects of pollution on the smolts. 

 Hence it has come to pass that angling in the 

 middle waters of Tweed, that is, between Makers- 

 toun and Melrose, is almost entirely restricted to 

 the autumn, after the removal of the nets on 

 15th September. Scrope, it will be observed, had 

 some of his best sport in summer in the reaches 

 of Mertoun, Dryburgh, and Melrose, and that 

 despite the deadly practice of "sunning," or 

 leistering fish in daylight, which was universally 

 put in effect as often as the water was low 

 enough. 1 



Nor is this all. The experience of several 

 successive seasons has shown that even the autumn 

 running fish are not nearly so numerous as formerly ; 

 and when they disappear, the angler must sorrow- 

 fully betake himself (and his guineas, which are 

 still of some moment to Scottish lairds) to streams 

 more kindly and more providently treated. Indeed, 



1 f< Vast numbers are captured in this manner^ particularly in the 

 upper part of the Tweed " (see p. 220). 



