THE GRIMERSTA 303 



A great feature about these lochs is that they are shallow, and 

 for the most part with gravelly bottom. Like other small and 

 shallow lochs into which fish quickly pass, they are free rising places. 

 The fish do not usually run heavy, about 7 J Ib. being the average for 

 salmon and grilse, with occasional examples of 18, 20, or 27 Ib. 

 When floods occur the fish usually become pretty quickly distributed 

 over the chain of lochs. The great record fishing was, however, 

 accomplished under quite unusual circumstances, an artificial flood 

 being induced which allowed fish into the first loch only. 



Mr. Naylor, who made the record score of 54 fish one day, has 

 already given an account of his fishing in the " Fur, Feather, and 

 Fin " Series (Salmon). Another account of the whole week's fishing 

 was contributed to the pages of The Field of November 8, 1902, by 

 one of the two others who participated in it Mr. Hansard and 

 this I take the liberty of quoting. The fishing was by fly alone, but 

 it is the habit on the Grimersta to fish two flies on the cast. The 

 year was 1888 : 



" That year there liad been no flood or even high water since the spring, 

 and I never saw the moors so dry, the edges of the peat looked just like the 

 stacks of fuel ready for burning. By the time we arrived (July SO) there was a 

 great accumulation of fish waiting to run up, and, the river remaining impassable, 

 the stock kept increasing daily. The great run of fish on the Grimersta is from 

 the middle of July till end of August. 



" As I have said, the lodge stands on the seaside some mile and a half down 

 the fjord into which the river flows, the fjord opposite the house not being 

 more than half a mile broad. The strength of the tide there runs very strongly 

 on the side opposite to the house. It was a curious thing to notice how at 

 every tide the shoals of fish followed the current, jumping regularly at just 

 the same places at the same stages of the tide as it flowed and ebbed. This 

 gave me a very good insight of what must happen when fixed nets are set along 

 a coast line, for the salmon seemed to play up and down the tideway for many 

 days, even when the river was quite passable to them. Owing to low water 

 the river was impassable, and this daily promenade of the shoals of salmon 

 and sea-trout was much more remarkable. Just outside the river mouth was 

 a round sort of basin, and it was round and round this that the fish seemed 

 most to congregate at high tide, showing their back fins as they swam round. 



"Though the fish swarmed here, and though I tried for them with all sorts 

 of baits, as well as with the fly, I never caught a salmon in salt water there 

 fairly, and but a few sea-trout. When we wanted any for the house it was a 

 simple matter to get them there, for one only had to wait for a shoal to come 

 by, cast over them with a big weighted fly, and snatch into one. The fish 

 staying so long in the estuary after they were ready to run into fresh water, 

 seemed to sicken, and many got large white patches on their sides and heads ; 

 but directly they got into fresh water this disease left them. Some were so 



