FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 class salmon river is merely a question of what one is prepared to pay — 

 a serious obstacle, indeed, to many an honest angler, for salmon -fishing 

 is essentially an exclusive recreation and the rents demanded and readily 

 obtained for waters of renown have risen to figures which would have been 

 deemed incredible by a former generation. 



Expense, however, is not the only difficulty in the path of him who would 

 have good sea -trout fishing. There are but few places to which he can 

 repair and calculate on a few days' or weeks' sport without the formality 

 of a lease, and such places are remote. Ballinahinch in Galway is one of 

 these, where, in a chain of lakes connected with the sea by a short river, 

 excellent sport may be expected by visitors staying in the hotels at 

 Recess and elsewhere in the district. More difficult of access, but far more 

 attractive than such semi -public assemblies of anglers, are the countless 

 streams of Ireland and Scotland, chiefly on the western and northern coasts 

 and among the islands, many of which dwindle to mere rills in time of 

 drought, but in which the lucky fellow who happens to be on the spot 

 when they are flooded is pretty sure of fast and exciting sport.* The main 

 difficulty is to hit off the right nick of time, for such streams fall as 

 rapidly as they rise ; moreover, it is often not easy to find accommodation. 

 Lodging, at best, may perhaps only be had in a shepherd's cottage, and 

 even that may be several moorland miles from the fishing. 



One such stream as this comes to mind, flowing through a deer forest 

 and falling into the head of a winding fjord or sea inlet in the West High- 

 lands. There is no human habitation within ten miles of its banks; the 

 solitude is profound; the silence broken only by the hoarse cry of the 

 golden eagle on the hillside, the gabble of the grouse-cock, the wailing 

 love -note of the curlew, the grunting croak of the raven and the clamour 

 of gulls on the tide. Here is a river which would be well worth much 

 pains to reach during a summer spate, for it draws a multitude of sea- 

 trout and a fair number of salmon, which, when the flood subsides, congre- 

 gate in a few deep, rocky pools. Yet in fact, I suppose, no fly is cast upon 

 this charming stream more than once in five years; so, whereas the crofters 

 in a neighbouring strath are wont to raid the pools, the proprietor draws 

 a net there once in every season. I was present on one such occasion. 

 He took us up the fjord in his yacht; we netted two pools and returned 



*On October 21, 1870, there wai a tremendous flood in the Luce, a river of Galloway, which did much destruc- 

 tion, sweeping away a large number of sheep. Yet when I arrived by train from Edinburgh at 4.30 p.m. the waters 

 had subsided so quickly that I was able to kill with the fly a salmon of 16 lb. before 5.30, when it was dark. 



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