THE BLACKWATER 309 



THE BLACKWATER 



This stream ranks next to the Grimersta, and is moreover acces- 

 sible to the public in a more general way, since visitors at Garynahine 

 Hotel, which stands at the river mouth at the head of Loch Roag, 

 can arrange to fish it. A number of lochs contribute to the 

 Blackwater, but they are not arranged in a chain, as in the Grimersta 

 district. They feed two separate streams which, on uniting some 

 six miles from the sea, form the Blackwater. In the days of 

 " Sixty-One " this stream went with Soval, and in his book, already 

 referred to, he gives an excellent account of the little river. 



" From the junction there are two or three miles of rough water 

 before you come to the first legitimate salmon pool. I call it 

 legitimate ; for, though I have done such a thing as catch a fish in 

 the rough water above this pool, yet, generally speaking, fish don't 

 stay in it, but run through for the two lochs. From this legitimate 

 pool to the Major's Pool, about a mile, when there was plenty of 

 water and you knew it well, the fishing, to my mind, was always 

 charming ; for the gentlemen were very merry, and dodged about in 

 the little narrows and pools in a very artful way. . . . From this 

 pool to the big pool was about another mile and a half of charmingly 

 varied water pools, streams, and narrows ; but it required fishing, 

 though not long casting. . . . The big pool, and the stream running 

 into it, was the crack cast of the river ; but I confess it was not my 

 pet, for when in prime order it was necessary to cast a long line in 

 the teeth of the wind, or rather across the wind, three-quarters 

 against you, so that it was all but impossible to prevent your line 

 bellying ; and your fish rose on a curved, not a straight, line, which 

 is not as it should be. ... But what with the wind and the stream, 

 when you hooked a fish there he fought. Strange to say, though 

 the pool was alive with fish, and rising in all parts by the weeds, 

 you seldom took one anywhere but in the stream and its entrance 

 into the pool between the two high banks of sedges. If by chance 

 you ever did rise a fish in other parts, he generally beat you and 

 got off. 



" I put a boat on this big pool, and got very nearly drowned two 

 or three times, but never did anything to repay me for the trouble. 

 From the big pool there was about half a mile of still, deep water, 

 with little or no stream, but full of fish. When the wind was right 

 anything east, north, or south, each was useless, as it was still 

 water on all the good casts there were plenty of fish to be got, and 



