WHITEADDER AND LAUDERDALE 



Scotland of a right of access to trouting waters. It 

 may or may not be justifiable. It is, of course, not 

 always recognised, but there it is anyway, and many 

 rivers testify to the fact that they can stand usage 

 without damage to the owners, and at the same time 

 provide immense pleasure to a great number of worthy 

 sportsmen. Some free waters, to be sure, are under 

 1 associations,' but the term has not the usual southern 

 significance of say half-a-crown or five shillings a day, 

 but merely the payment of some such nominal amount 

 per annum, the large number of subscribers thereby 

 providing for the maintenance of a watcher. Almost 

 the only potential enemies of trout are the miners, 

 who repair in groups to these waters for two or three 

 days at a time, sleeping in the open, and though keen 

 enough rod fishermen they are not above making up 

 for poor sport by nefarious practices. The local angler 

 bears no jealousy whatever towards his fellow-sports- 

 man, wherever he may hail from, but he loathes and 

 suspects the miner, whether from Midlothian or from 

 Lanarkshire, and probably with good cause. 



When the competitors return at evening from 

 Berwickshire, the Lothians, Selkirk, Roxburgh, or 

 Peebles to the headquarters of their club, the baskets 

 are weighed in, the victors are proclaimed, and the 

 day sometimes, as related, wound up with a banquet. 

 The results (not of the banquet) are published next 

 morning in the Scotsman, along with the golfing, 

 bowling, and cricket matches. Almost every day 

 throughout the season their figures may be read ; 

 and any southerner, sceptical as to the capacity of 

 the trout to hold his own and make good his losses, 



34 1 



