CHAPTER XXIV. 

 THE RIVERS GRUINARD, EWE, AND CARRON (W. ROSS). 



ANGLING SEASON : llth February to 31st October. 

 NETTING SEASON : llth February to 26th August. 



THE Gruinard has a great reputation, and upon this I fear it has 

 nowadays to live. It is a little river which used to yield great 

 sport, and in spite of the difficulty of getting there, it used to be 

 much sought after. 



The fishable part of the river is 5| miles in length, being the 

 course of the stream from Loch-na-Sheallag to the sea. The loch 

 itself is 4 f miles long, and 279 feet above sea-level. Above the 

 loch the stream which flows down from a higher hill loch of small 

 size, called Loch-an-Nid, which is really the source, is about 

 6 miles, but it is so rocky and so small as to be no use for 

 salmon angling. 



One is here impressed by the feeling that for a small country like 

 our own, there are some very remote parts. Gruinard Bay, with its 

 large island, is a deep indentation of the coast. Little Loch Broom 

 is a long, narrow loch amongst great hills, which enters the bay on 

 the north. The Little Gruinard river enters from the south, after 

 its rough course from the Fionn Loch. The whole country drained 

 by the Strathbeg into Little Loch Broom and by the Great and 

 Small Gruinards, lies to the western sea in a region of its own, shut 

 off from the rest of the world by a magnificent amphitheatre of 

 mountains. Habitations are few, the forests of Dundonnell, Gruinard, 

 Inverewe, and Fisherfield, with their bare, rocky buttresses, high 

 slopes, and deep corries, form a natural home for the red deer, but 

 do not offer much support to man. The rainfall is copious, and the 

 little rivers often swell quickly into torrents, but at other times the 

 sun strikes hot, the sheltered waters of the Atlantic loose their long- 

 lifting swell in the quiet, lochs and bays, and glitter peacefully along 



