n8 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



for the harbourage of star- sided prodigies, make me unwilling to 

 lose hold of a belief so fascinating. There lives a spirit of 

 romance about some of our Highland lakes, and this one in par- 

 ticular, which extends down to their very trout, aud refuses to 

 consort these with anything in point of size and attractiveness 

 out of character with the general bearing. Many a blank day 

 has been rendered, if not cheering, at least endurable, to the 

 troller, under the pervading influence of the genius loci. 



Often, on Loch Awe, has the mere run of aferox, by help of 

 this charm, although followed by the escape of the fish, induced 

 to shape hopes of high success, and give edge, instead of blunt- 

 ing it, to the angler's perseverance. It is all right, too, that 

 there should be traditions afloat regarding the bellicose Salmones 

 of such storm-fed reservoirs yarns spun under the shadowy 

 shoulders of a Cruachan or a Schiehallion, of fish whose strength 

 and dimensions accord with the wild and savage scenery round 

 about. I for one surrender myself cheerfully to the imposture. 

 I have no wish to become robbed of such roseate fiction as deals 

 with fairies and pigmies, gnomes and ogres, mermaids and water- 

 kelpies ; neither any longer am I willing that to the exact and 

 naked truth should be clipped down the marvellous incidents 

 met with by anglers : the hairbreadth escapes of huge trout, 

 shaped and beaked like Roman war- galleys; the runs, sullen and 

 tedious, which last through a summer's noon on to sunset, and 

 just at dusk are broken off" by a fierce plunge, like that of a 

 grampus, followed by a rush forward that exhausts the line, 

 snaps the tackle, and smashes a twenty-foot rod into shivereens. 

 Such materials for piscatorial story are to be met with still, and 

 on Loch Awe as readily as anywhere. Why not put faith in 

 them, and attach at the same time soine measure of credibility to 

 the vaunts of our progenitors ? 



My visits to Loch Awe were paid usually at a season of the 

 year when trolling for the ferox was not much pursued, owing 



