56 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



A large section of the Spey skirts, and in part traverses, the 

 county of Elgin, in its relation to Banffshire. It was to a 

 portion of that section that, in the month of August 1861, I was 

 induced to pay a visit, in the expectation of obtaining a day or 

 two's salmon-fishing of a more exciting character than is usually, 

 at that season of the year, met with on Tweedside. With Mr. 

 Balmer, his Grace the Duke of Richmond's factor at Fochabers, 

 I was slightly acquainted ; and on application to him, received 

 a permit (burdened with the usual condition, viz., to deliver up 

 all fish taken to the kenner or overseer), which authorized me to 

 angle for salmon over the lowermost stretch of the river, extend- 

 ing from the bridge downwards. 



His account, however, of the sport met with on the reserved 

 casts, by his Grace and friends, up to that date, was anything 

 but cheering, and quite overturned the notions I had formed of 

 Fochabers as a rod-fishing station. It tallied ill, in fact, with 

 the numerous statements I had from time to time received and 

 trusted to, respecting the superiority of the Spey, in that quarter 

 especially, as an angling river ; and when, from the lips of Mr. 

 Balmer, who was himself a practical salmon-fisher, I heard the 

 capture of five or six grilses in the course of a forenoon spoken 

 of dl a great feat, and one rarely accomplished, I began to 

 wonder at my own credulity in having swallowed such extraordi- 

 nary relations in regard to the plentifulness of the Spey salmon, 

 the skill of its anglers, and the incomparable excellence of its 

 casts. Such ' soughs' from the far North, I am at length dis- 

 posed to listen to in the humour of the old fisherman at Trows, 

 of whom the story is told, that on the occasion of a jolly meeting 

 of his craft, a member of which, who rented a fishing higher up 

 the river, having boasted of the enormous salmon he had recently 

 taken with the rod, or in his cairn-nets, it was put to our friend, 

 in a taunting way, by what oversight or want of skill he had 

 permitted such monsters to pass up through his territory without 



