LOCH-FISHING 67 



club. It is not deep, has rather a marshy bottom, 

 and many ducks, snipe, and wild-fowl generally 

 dwell among the reeds and marish plants of its 

 sides. Nobody ever dreamed of fishing here, but 

 one day a rustic, ' glowering' idly over the wall of 

 the adjacent road, saw fish rising. He mentioned 

 his discovery to an angler, who is said to have 

 caught some large trout, but tradition varies about 

 everything, except that the fish are very ' dour.' 

 One evening in August, a warm, still evening, I 

 happened to visit the tarn. As soon as the sun 

 fell below the hills, it was literally alive with large 

 trout rising. As far as one could estimate from 

 the brief view of heads and shoulders, they were 

 sometimes two or three pounds in weight. I got 

 my rod, of course, as did a rural friend. Mine was 

 a small cane rod, his a salmon-rod. I fished with 

 one Test-fly ; he with three large loch-flies. The 

 fish were rising actually at our feet, but they 

 seemed to move about very much, never, or 

 seldom, rising twice exactly at the same place. 

 The hypothesis was started that there were but 

 few of them, and that they ran round and round 



