NOVEMBER 267 



netting, do not the protection and development of the 

 former assume commercial importance ? 



Meanwhile, except in a few large rivers like the 

 Aberdeenshire Dee and the Welsh Usk, where well- 

 organised associations have taken spirited action, and 

 in some small ones which are let at high ransoms to 

 wealthy sportsmen, it is hardly worth casting a fly 

 between seedtime and harvest. In the Tweed, for 

 example, once prolific in salmon and trout beyond any 

 other British river, a few fish may be taken with rod in 

 the lower reaches fish that have run up before the 

 nets begin their deadly work, or that have managed to 

 run the gauntlet in the floods of February Fill-dyke. 

 A summer flood, that used to bring William Scrope 

 to his beloved Craigover as surely as it sent Tom 

 Stoddart with tremulous ardour to Maxwheel at Kelso 

 Bridge or the Laird's Cast at Makerstoun, now runs 

 away without anybody thinking it worth while to take 

 his rod from the rack. The river runs as sweetly as 

 ever through the Haly Weil at Bemersyde, the Burnfoot 

 at Dryburgh, the Bloody Breeks at Mertoun, the Dark 

 Shore at Makerstoun all famous summer casts of yore, 

 but now tenantless till the ' back end/ all the fish that 

 would seek these immemorial resting-places having been 

 gobbled up by the relentless nets. The indescribable 

 thrill of the rise, the tightening line, the struggle, must be 

 postponed till the days shorten and the leaves turn sere. 



Such as we have it, we must not despise autumn 

 angling. The salmon that defers till October his return 

 to his native river is inferior, indeed, in everything but 



