CHAPTER V. 



THE DEE. 



ANGLING SEASON : llth February to 31st October. 

 NETTING SEASON : llth February to 26th August. 



District Fishery Board meets in Aberdeen. 

 Alex. Duffus, Esq., Advocate, Aberdeen, is Clerk. 



THERE is no river in Scotland which offers so much first-class angling 

 water as the Dee. If the Tweed were unobstructed by nets, weirs, 

 and pollutions, it would offer perhaps an even greater amount, but 

 the beautiful reaches of Tweed above Peebles scarcely hold a fish till 

 " the back end," while the corresponding section of the Dee offers 

 the cream of fishing from late spring onwards. The Dee also has a 

 general character throughout its whole course which is not found in 

 many rivers. The Helmsdale is perhaps the nearest in character, 

 but it is only a fourth of the length. 



The Dee rises from two little streams which drain the slopes of 

 Braeriach in the Cairngorms. The Garrachorry Burn, which hurries 

 down the deep cleft between Braeriach and Cairn Toul from the so- 

 called Dee Well, may be considered the highest head-stream. A 

 more romantic spot for the birth of the grand river could not well 

 be imagined. The mountain masses rise steep and magnificent ; 

 Cairn Toul conical with a great crater-like hollow gouged out of its 

 side, where a little tarn reflects the ridges above, and where deer 

 are frequently to be seen feeding round the juicy margin ; Braeriach, 

 the prototype of its opposite neighbour Benmacdhui, impressive in 

 great mass and solidity. Dee Well is 4060 feet above sea-level, and 

 therefore more than 1300 feet above the stream which drains the 

 eastern side of the Larig the high pass through the mountains 

 from Strathspey. Here there are two or three pools, usually bluish 

 and snow-fed in appearance, named also the Wells of Dee. How 



