CHAPTER III. 



TAY DISTRICT. 



RIVERS : TAY, TUMMEL, GARRY, TILT, LYON, ISLA, ALMOND, EARN. 

 LOCHS : TAY, TUMMEL, RANNOCH GARRY, EARN. 



ANGLING SEASON : January 15th to October 15th. 

 NETTING SEASON : February 5th to August 20th. 



(For special fishing seasons of Earn see under that river,) 



District Fishery Board sits in Perth. 



Clerks : Messrs. Condie & Mackenzie, Solicitors, Perth. 



THERE is a certain amount of rivalry between the Tay, the Dee, and 

 the Tweed as to which is the greatest or most important salmon 

 river in Scotland, or it may be in Britain. I have been blamed for 

 describing the Tay as the premier river of Scotland, so I will not 

 make the statement again. I confess to a feeling of diffidence in 

 commencing to write of the river at all ; it is such a big thing. I 

 suppose our American cousins, who are accustomed to big things, 

 would regard the river as a mere brook. It is over a hundred miles 

 long. The Spey, by the way, is the same length. On the authority 

 of Sir Archibald Geikie, however, the Tay has the greatest volume 

 of water in Great Britain. I leave Londoners to make the best of 

 that statement. The drainage area is nearly 2000 square miles. 1 

 The Fillan Water is the real source of the Tay. It rises from a 

 high corrie on Ben Laoigh on the borders of Argyllshire and at an 

 elevation of about 3000 feet. This corrie forms the upper end of a 

 highly eroded basin of great extent, and touches the main water 

 parting of the country. An idea of the extent of erosion may be 

 obtained when it is realised that, from its high source, the Fillan 

 has in 11 miles reached the comparatively low level of 500 feet. 

 Loch Dochart and Loch Jubhair are 512 feet, and from the latter 



1 The Geology and Scenery of the Grampians. Peter Macnair, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. 

 Vol. i. p. 69. MacLehose & Sons, Glasgow, 1908. 



