THE GRIMERSTA 305 



call the Eagle fly. In he rushed, jumping like a monkey across the stones. 

 He got right up to the fish, made a grab at it, and got hold of it for a moment ; 

 but lost his footing, went head over heels into the water, and away rushed the 

 never-to-be-forgotten, ever-to-be-remembered, Eagle-bearing fish. For the 

 first few days after the fish had gotten into the first loch they had not settled 

 down, and we did not have more than average sport. Two rods were fishing 

 on the loch and river, and got 17 and 12 on Wednesday ; Thursday, 31 and 18 ; 

 Friday, 2 and 6 ; Saturday, 15 and 23. But the big week was to come. 

 Unfortunately, as I before said, two rods left on Saturday, the 25th, leaving 

 only three for the finish of the month. 



" I have often been asked how it was that one loch produced all the fish, a 

 quite unusual state of things, as in a normal year No. 1 was by no means the 

 best beat. Our flood was made by damming up one lake ; so unlike a natural 

 flood which would have taken the fish up to the head water had they cared to 

 travel so far ; our spate rushed them all into No. 1 loch, and there left them, for 

 it was only at quite the early stage, when the level of the lake was still high, 

 that they could run into No. 2 loch. As a fact, we did catch some in that loch 

 in the next week. So fish enough to stock twenty miles of lochs were crammed 

 into one loch not three miles in circumference. 



" Now as to my experiences on the days on which I fished the loch. The 

 rules of the fishing were laid down with great preciseness, and, as there were 

 only three rods instead of the usual five, it was ordained that only one rod should 

 fish this first lake, though in an ordinary way it made two beats. As things 

 turned out, we made a great mistake in not overriding this law, and all three 

 could well have fished in the one loch, where I really believe we should have 

 killed 500 in the week. Instead of which, by the rule, we only got the lake two 

 days each in the week, and on the other four days got practically nothing, there 

 being only a stray fish in the river and in No. 2 loch. The first of these days 

 was, I have often thought, the one on which I should have caught the most fish. 

 But I had asked a lady who was staying at Moorsgale to come over and fish, she 

 never having caught a salmon. She came at about ten, and stayed till five in 

 the afternoon. Just as in the sea, the fish kept in shoals, and whenever we 

 caught sight of them we rowed hard towards them, and as soon as the fly went 

 over it was quite a certainty to rise one. But the fly would not go straight, and 

 striking was very difficult. Over and over again I saw a fish rise open-mouthed 

 at the fly, seize it unmolested, and spit it out of his mouth. Then a panic strike, 

 too late to hook the fish, and, as the fly was dragged away, another mad fish 

 would go for it, all this only a few feet from the boat. After many troubles the 

 lady caught quite by herself nine fish. At intervals in the day I caught some 

 half dozen, and, after the lady had gone home at five o'clock, I caught twelve 

 more fish by seven o'clock, when I stopped fishing. 



" The second day on which I had this lake was Saturday, September 1, the 

 last day of our month. A. M. Naylor had broken all likely records by killing 

 on Tuesday 54 fish and on Friday 45, so I had no great hopes of anything to 

 approach his scores. I began well at 9.15. The day was a perfect fishing day, 

 cloudy, enough wind, and slight showers, but the mist was low on the hills, 

 which, we had always been told, was a bad sign. Since September 1, 1888, I 



U 



