CHAPTER XV. 



CONON DISTRICT. 



RIVERS CONON, MEIG, BLACKWATER, ORRIN. 



ANGLING SEASON: February llth to October 31st. 

 NETTING SEASON: February llth to August 26th. 



District Fishery Board sits in Dingwall. Clerk, W. K. T. Middleton, Esq., Solicitor, 



Dingwall. 



THE Conon District is an example of a complex river system, a 

 district in which various rivers of not very different size unite, as 

 compared to the simple river system in which one large river can be 

 traced as distinctly the predominant waterway, all other streams 

 being subordinate tributaries to it. In this instance a large loch, 

 Loch Luichart, occupies a central position, receiving water at its 

 head from the river Bran and from other streams, discharging its 

 waters over a high and beautiful waterfall, or rather over two falls 

 close together, into what is thereafter known as the Conon Kiver. 

 On either side of this central flow an important river also con- 

 verges, on the north, through Loch Garve, the Blackwater ; on the 

 south also from high deer country, the Meig. The Meig is not so 

 great a stream as the Blackwater, but the glen through which it 

 flows is called Strathconon, suggesting that the Meig is in reality 

 the upper section of the Conon. It is perhaps unnecessary in a 

 complex district like this to distinguish any one stream as the head 

 waters proper of the district, but if we take the waterway which 

 springs from furthest inland, and at the same time that which seems 

 to gather the greatest amount of water, we must select the central 

 line through Loch Luichart and Loch Rosque. The Meig is 24 miles 

 in length down Strathconon to its junction with the main river. 

 The distance from the stream above Loch Rosque to the mouth of 

 the Meig is 27 miles. 



Loch Rosque is at present the abode of only trout and char. It 



