ON SEA TROUT 



The lochs were less satisfactory. There was no boat upon 

 them, the bottom was of soft peat, and the wading peculiar. 

 After wading a few steps into the water, one's feet sank into 

 the soft bottom, masses of bubbles came up with a wallowing 

 sound, and one had an impression of standing upon a yielding 

 surface, which would collapse suddenly and let one down into 

 an abyss. There was no firm ground in the lochs whatever, 

 but we became used to the alarming feel of the soft peat and 

 to the bubbles, and in time lost our fear, though we observed 

 a certain caution to the end. The most troublesome habit of 

 the lochs was that of becoming perfectly thick after a night of 

 wind and rain, and even in the rare and short intervals of quiet 

 weather the water in them was always full of floating particles. 

 I think the fish would have risen better in clearer water, but, 

 even as it was, we found that some fish would take so long as 

 the colour of the lochs remained black ; when the colour 

 became brown, fishing in them was hopeless. 



The third and most interesting sort of fishing was in the 

 voes in salt water. There was one voe some two miles in 

 length, with two small burns about a quarter of a mile apart 

 at the head of it. It looked a likely place upon the large map, 

 and we walked over to it one Sunday afternoon to see and hear 

 what we could. There were a few crofters near the sea at the 

 place, and we were told by one of them that fish were seen 

 jumping in the voe in September, and that someone was sup- 

 posed to have fished there once and caught nothing. We 

 thought this hopeful, for where fish are seen in Shetland they 

 may be caught, and one day I walked over to experiment. I 



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