1 66 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



cations at the surface of its containing, as well as pike, the macu- 

 lated race in some abundance. From nets, however, which I 

 noticed stretching across several of its bays, it was plainly at 

 that time in the hands of others than sportsmen. With these 

 engines trout of seven or eight pounds' weight have frequently 

 been captured in this sheet of water. 



Diverging from Strathbran at Achnasheen, a road conducts to 

 Loch Roskh, and thence to Loch Maree. Of Loch Roskh, on 

 the 25th of July, I took a peep ; but the expectation of getting 

 sport among the sea-trout on the Carron, where I had plenary 

 permission to angle from the then proprietor, the late Mr. Mac- 

 kenzie of Applecross, prevented me from playing the tempter to 

 its freckled denizens. While proceeding towards Jeantown, I 

 dipped feather in a crystalline expanse near the roadside Loch 

 Dowal by name. It is a fair, isleted piece of water, fringed 

 with natural wood, but barren, comparatively speaking, of yellow 

 trout. The Carron, which passes through it, introduces, when 

 floods occur, a considerable number of salmon and sea-trout into 

 its shelter-places ; and good sport, I am told, is occasionally to 

 be met with now-a-days from its banks. At the time I visited 

 it, the Carron, three miles below Loch Dowal, was crossed by a 

 cruive-dyke, containing one or more traps or boxes ; and it was 

 only on the occasion of a very heavy spate that fish could make 

 their way over it. As yet there had been no opportunity for 

 their doing so that season, and such fish as the river contained 

 were restricted to the piece of water extending betwixt this 

 barrier and the sea, which comprised at most three or four 

 angling casts. It so happened that, coincident with my arrival 

 at Loch Carron, a change in the weather, which, throughout the 

 early portion of the summer, had in that quarter been harsh and 

 dry, took place. The air became suddenly mild, and copious 

 showers in the upper valley had the effect of swelling the river, 

 and keeping it in stock, as well as in trim, during my sojourn. 



