42 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



Next week I set out towards Golspie, and obtained permission 

 to angle in the Brora and Fleet rivers. The former was in a 

 very reduced state, no rains having fallen on the east coast for 

 weeks. Immediately below the old cruives, however, I hooked, 

 at the third cast, a fine salmon. Unfortunately, the hold taken 

 was slight, and after a run or two, which indicated strength and 

 good condition, he made his escape. Although I persevered 

 the whole forenoon, the sky cloudless, as usual, I failed to raise 

 another, and was content to devote the after portion of the day 

 to the taking of finuocks. The rod-fishings on the Brora that 

 season had been let, with a reserve in favour of his Grace or 

 deputy, to three parties, who turned out to be all old acquaint- 

 ances of mine, and celebrated anglers to boot. I met two of 

 them at Inver Brora, and they gave me a very sorry account of 

 the sport they had had ; they had not, in fact, taken a single 

 fish among them for the last ten days. While at Golspie I also 

 fished the Fleet ; and, although the day was bright and breeze- 

 less, filled my basket with beautiful sea-trout, in number twenty- 

 five, some of which weighed nearly two pounds apiece. The 

 pools I fished in were long, dead stretches of water, lying about 

 a mile above the Mound, and were much hemmed in with alder 

 brushwood. Not having a landing-net with me, I required to 

 exhaust to the uttermost nearly every fish hooked, and then, 

 taking hold of the line with my hand, haul him up the bank, or, 

 reaching down, grasp him with my hand while panting on the 

 water's surface. Of course I lost many, and among these some 

 of the best, by this mode of treatment ; but there was no help 

 for it. On the 14th of September I left Golspie for the banks 

 of the Shin, and in the course of the evening called upon my 

 friend Andrew Young. He was very anxious that I should 

 once more throw a fly over his river, the parties renting the rod- 

 fishings from him having complained lately of want of sport, 

 although the streams were in excellent trim, and, during ordi- 



