THE ECHAIG AND LOCH ECK 367 



and a high structure would not by any means be required would 

 afford in all probability a most useful pool below it, and for the rest 

 a little judicious croy-making would, I believe, work wonders. It is, 

 I admit, more or less unseemly, almost impertinent, to write thus all 

 unasked about another man's river, but I plead as my excuse that I 

 have a sentimental interest in the Echaig. In it as a small boy I 

 caught my first grilse I can recollect yet how my knees knocked 

 together when the awful fear that the fish might get off presented 

 itself. In the Little Echaig, which joins below the Cott House 

 Bridge, I learned to swim and nearly drowned myself too. Up 

 the Masson, the largest tributary, which joins below Benmore House, 

 I received a wholesome lesson to overhaul my outfit before starting 

 for a day's fishing. I had trudged up to the falls, full of youthful 

 ardour. The sea-trout were rising freely ; great big ones too. I put 

 up my rod with speed all eager for the fray, when lo ! I had left my 

 reel behind. I had to walk to Kilmun Cottage to get it, and, of 

 course, when I got back after about an hour and a halt's hard going, 

 the fish were not rising freely at all. Since that day I think I have 

 never failed to repeat to myself, if starting out alone : 



" Rod, reel, basket, 

 Hooks, worms, flasket." 



One has only to make a mental reservation about the worms as a 

 rule. 



I recollect seeing some blasting operations carried out opposite 

 the deer park in those early days. The late Mr. Duncan was then 

 proprietor. The object was to deepen the water. A different 

 method "has since been adopted, viz. by building a low weir, and I 

 understand the latter method has been attended with considerable 

 success. 



The Echaig is, however, much more of a sea-trout than a salmon 

 river, although when a club of six rods used to fish the water, and 

 there was no netting, very good catches of salmon were made. Now- 

 adays the pool above and the pool below the Cott House Bridge, not 

 far from the mouth of the river, are netted, intermittently, I believe, 

 about three days a week. In the three first years of the present 

 proprietor's time the netting was let to a tacksman in Dunoon, and 

 in this period, I have been informed, he secured 33,000 sea-trout. 

 Of course, the river was then netted as hard as men could do it who 

 had the one object of making money out of it. Nowadays the netting 

 is not carried on in this fashion, being worked by the proprietor 



