174 FLY FISHING 



after a night of wind and rain, and even in the 

 rare and short intervals of quiet weather the 

 water in them was always full of floating 

 particles. I think the fish would have risen 

 better in clearer water, but even as it was we 

 found that some fish would take so long as the 

 colour of the lochs remained black ; when the 

 colour became brown, fishing in them was 

 hopeless. 



The third and most interesting sort of fishing 

 was in the voes in salt water. There was one 

 voe some two miles in length, with two small 

 burns about a quarter of a mile apart at the 

 head of it. It looked a likely place upon the 

 large map, and we walked over to it one Sunday 

 afternoon to see and hear what we could. There 

 were a few crofters near the sea at the place, and 

 we were told by one of them that fish were seen 

 jumping in the voe in September, and that some 

 one was supposed to have fished there once and 

 caught nothing. We thought this hopeful, for 

 where fish are seen in Shetland they may be 

 caught, and one day I walked over to experi- 

 ment. I seldom spent a more wretched and 

 hopeless morning. There was no sign of a sea 



