8o AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



is invitingly ruffled, to show face to the artificial fly. I was, 

 however, on three or four occasions, fortunate enough to find 

 them in high taking humour. The most remarkable of these 

 stands recorded in my diary, under date of June 20th. Trudging 

 up towards the loch early in the morning, I overtook a middle-aged 

 gentleman of stoutish build, half-clerically and half-piscatorially 

 rigged out, with whom I entered into conversation about trout- 

 ing and the prospects of the day. He was quite an enthusiast on 

 the subject, but leant to the worm rather than the fly, and was 

 on his way to test the efficacy of that lure among the feeders of 

 Loch Turret and Cuan. To attempt discouraging him I saw at 

 once was useless, as he had made up his mind to the work, so, 

 on arriving together at the lower end of the lake, I commenced 

 operations. In the course of two or three hours we again met, 

 as if by appointment, at the exact spot where we had separated. 

 The trout had just given over feeding, and I was in the act of 

 counting out my spoils on the heathery slope, when my companion 

 of the morning made his reappearance. He had never seen, he 

 admitted, such an array of beautiful trout in his lifetime. They 

 exceeded by a trifle six dozen in number. Of these, about a 

 score stood severally from a pound well on to a pound and a half 

 in weight, the rest averaging nearly half-a-pound apiece. The 

 fine condition and superb colouring of these fish drew expressions 

 of warm admiration from my new friend, who introduced himself 

 on the spur of the moment as Professor Grillespie of St.' Andrews, 

 the author, among other literary effusions, of some observations, 

 published in one of the early numbers of Blackwood's Magazine 

 (1819, pp. 585), on bait-fishing, along with a humorous account 

 of a day's excursion up Glenwhargan in Dumfriesshire, his 

 native county. These observations, although applied to worm- 

 fishing, contain the cream and marrow of Stewart's advices to 

 the fly-fisher. They are very valuable in their relation to small 

 burns tenanted by petty trout, but are scarcely worth a straw 



