292 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



If the additional scourings out of the river bed, consequent upon 

 the unrestricted floods from the loch, have reduced the spawning 

 beds of the Ewe itself, additional harm has been done by the removal 

 of the dyke, but I do not consider that fish which formerly spawned 

 in the Ewe would necessarily form the habit of frequenting the Ewe 

 and not penetrating to the upper waters. 



July is generally considered the best month on the Ewe, but I 

 have heard the opinion expressed by one who has had considerable 

 experience of the river that there are even now more fish to be got 

 in spring than in summer. The late Sir Kenneth Mackenzie's best 

 day is reported to have been 10 grilse presumably in June or July 

 and Mr. Dixon, who was tenant of Inveran for a number of years, 

 had a day of six grilse. Sir Humphry Davy, in his Salmonia, 

 speaks of the Ewe as a certainty for sport in summer, and adds that 

 when the cruive existed further up the river than at time of his 

 writing (1813) the Ewe was a good second to the Brora. The state- 

 ment about the cruive does not seem to me to be accurate if my 

 information as to the history of that structure is correct. 



Mr. Dixon, who at Inveran had two days a week on the river, the 

 four others going with Pool House, reported to the Fishery Board 

 for Scotland that in his 17 years' tenancy the take of fish averaged 

 about 40 in the season. On looking over the bridge at Poolewe one 

 day in July, 1908, I saw more than that number swimming about in 

 the tidal pool, most of them were probably grilse, and a large number 

 of sea-trout were also in waiting, leaping from time to time all over 

 the pool, as their habit is. The river was dead low, and ascent was 

 well-nigh impossible. A shoal of fish kept moving about the pool, 

 headed by a salmon of 15lb. or 161b., now approaching the pure 

 water inflow at the top of the pool, again retiring to the brackish 

 water further back. 



If the number of fish taken be small, the size of individual fish is 

 sometimes great, and the " playing" proclivities remarkably active. 

 The record fish is one of 50 lb., killed on the fly, by Grant, the Pool 

 House keeper. Several fish over 30 lb. have also been taken. 



The Ewe is, I consider, a river which will be most readily restored 

 to a condition for good angling by reverting to something analogous 

 to the artificial obstructions of its better days. I know not if the 

 raising of the loch would now flood farms at Kinlochewe, and in 

 any case it is not desirable to make the river steeper than it is or 

 to have recourse to any barrier thrown completely across the stream. 

 The most suitable line of action, in my view, is to have resort to 



