304 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



badly diseased that we used to find a good many left dead on the rocks at 

 low tide. 



" The party, five rods, of which I was one, had the fishing for the month of 

 August, and things got more and more hopeless as time went on. So bad, 

 indeed, that two of the party left before the end of the month. From the 

 formation of the lochs, it struck us that an artificial spate might be made by 

 cutting away the river bed and letting down water from one of the upper- 

 lakes. We explored all the likely places, and at last hit upon the lower end of 

 Loch Langabhat as being a suitable place for the work. This was easier to do 

 than it sounds, as some years before a hatchway had been made there, with a 

 grating to keep the fish from running into Loch Langabhat. Unfortunately, this 

 useful work had gone to ruin, but it was easy to grub up the bed of the stream 

 where the grating had been, and so let down nearly 2 feet of the big lake, 

 which is ten miles long by half to one mile across. At the bottom of our first 

 loch, i.e. the one nearest the sea, we then made a dam across the river head, 

 some 6 feet high, as solidly as we could with rocks and turves. All this was 

 rather against the opinion of the gillies, who declared that no salmon would 

 run up except in water fresh from the sky. As the water gradually worked 

 down through the chain of lochs it filled up this lower lake to the top of the 

 dam. But this took a long time, nearly a week. When at last this was 

 accomplished we were ready to cut the dam, and, as it was some one and a half 

 miles from the sea, we reckoned (as it proved, correctly) that it would take 

 an hour for the water to reach the sea from the lake. On August 22 the high 

 tide was about 4.30, so the dam was cut after lunch, and, as a fact, did not take 

 much cutting, as in a few more hours it must have given way. 



" As I had described, at the mouth of the river was the large sea basin, 

 at high tide crammed with fish pressing up as near as they could to where the 

 little trickle of fresh water was still running. As the fresh water from the 

 loch came rushing down the excitement began. First a small shoal of salmon 

 tried the passage, then more came rushing in. So madly did they swarm in 

 that they pressed each other to the sides, and many ran right ashore or 

 scrambled up in water not deep enough to cover them. Had we wished, 

 nothing could have been easier than to have scooped them out in landing nets 

 by the score. 



" We sat watching this wonderful sight till it grew dusk, and had long 

 given up counting or trying to estimate the numbers of fish running in. They 

 must, without exaggeration, have run in by thousands in the forty -eight hours 

 that our spate lasted. The next morning, I well remember, was clear and 

 bright, and, walking up the river, the pools seemed literally paved with fish, 

 even in all sorts of unlikely and unaccustomed places. A day or two before 

 I had tried for some fish in the sea, and, as usual, they would not play the 

 game, so the snatch hook was put on. I hooked a big fish, much marked with 

 disease on the head, but, after playing, I lost him in the seaweed, a not unusual 

 occurrence in the sea. The cast broke about a foot from the large Golden 

 Eagle I had on. On the morning after the dam cutting I saw my fish amongst 

 some others on a shallow. So also did my sharp-eyed gillie, little Jhonit, who 

 was much excited at the chance of recovering the ' Wooley Dog,' as he used to 



