A FLYER IN LOCH MORE 229 



light and short will become heavy enough, and long enough 

 too, in a long day's work. My advice, therefore, to the young 

 salmon-angler is, not to overweight himself in his choice of a 

 rod at the outset, but to work up to a heavier and longer 

 weapon, which practice and time may eventually enable him 

 to manage. Something, too, depends upon the kind of fishing 

 he is going to undertake. If it be boat-fishing upon a lake, a 

 fifteen-foot rod is quite long enough, so that there be plenty of 

 stuff in the butt and the lower part of the next joint, for lake 

 fish often run and pull tremendously. 



The most sporting fish I ever hooked in the whole course of 

 my life was a fish of twelve pounds, which I hooked from the 

 shore on Loch More at Thurso. I never saw such a fish ; he 

 was a regular flyer, and was more out of the water than in. 

 Plunging and leaping from the water, as dolphins are always 

 depicted as doing, particularly on signboards, he took out 

 clear, without stopping for a second, over one hundred yards 

 of line ; and, had I not chanced to have one hundred and 

 twenty on my reel, he would certainly have broken me. The 

 late Sir F. Sykes, a first-rate rod, was run out and broken, 

 with one hundred yards, on the same spot but a few days 

 before. At about one hundred and ten yards I got on terms 

 with him ; and, to see this twelve-pound fish leaping out of 

 the water, at such a distance from me that he did not look 

 larger than a good-sized trout, it was difficult to imagine that 

 there was any connecting link between us. I had no boat, 

 and wading was out of the question. Another ten yards and 

 he would have bid me good-bye. But the tackle was new and 

 sound, the rod well set up in the lower joints, and for the last 

 twenty or thirty yards I let him have it heavily ; and this, 

 with the weight of the line, stopped him. So that, in lake- 

 fishing, if your rod be short it must not be weak. 



In boat-fishing on a river also a long rod is not desirable. 

 Where a long rod is of advantage is upon a good-sized sporting 

 river, fishable from the shore, where you have broken ground 

 and water, and where you must often run with your fish ; 

 where, perhaps, wading is frequently indispensable ; and 

 where an extra foot of rod will at times enable you to carry 

 your line over some big stone, rock, or bush, which would, 

 perhaps, cause you inevitable grief with a shorter rod ; and 

 where long casting is required, or where there are high or awk- 

 ward banks behind you, with rugged stones and roots to 

 smash your hook on. Under such circumstances the angler 



