TROLLING FOR THE SALMO-FEROX. 97 



When the loch has been thoroughly flooded, wait till 

 it falls in a little, as the large fish especially are glutted 

 with food, and lazy, after continued wet weather. Upon 

 the water diminishing and getting clear, they will become 

 more alert than before the rain. 



The best time of year for the salmo-ferox is the end of 

 April, May, and the beginning of June. They are very 

 dormant all July and August. Although much more shy 

 than in spring, they sometimes take pretty fair in Septem- 

 ber. A small bait is generally most successful in this 

 month. The large ones lie farther from the shore than 

 earlier in the season. Many of the best worth hooking 

 even haunt the middle of the loch at this time of year. 

 I killed two last September (1850) in midloch, which 

 weighed twelve and a half and twelve pounds. Some of 

 the Loch Awe fishing-guides suggested to me, that the 

 partiality of the feroxes for deep water then might be 

 occasioned by the pike driving the small trout from the 

 shallows, and that the feroxes followed the shoals into the 

 deep to prey upon them. But if this is the reason, why 

 don't they do so in May and June ? In autumn a good 

 fish is sometimes taken in the estuary of the Awe, called 

 the " Brander," as they are making for the river to spawn. 

 The Brander is generally blank at any other time. 



MOUNTAIN TAENS 



There are a number of little mountain tarns in the 

 neighbourhood of Inverary, most of them well stocked. 



