OCTOBER ON THE STINCHAR. 361 



But for this insulting treatment, my huge salmon would 

 have preserved good manners all through his trying ordeal, and 

 merited the full compliment, only partially bestowed by a 

 Celtic gillie on a Laggan fish, " She's playin' ceevil noo ! " 



The Colmonell " kelpie " was off in a twinkling, but the rest 

 of the party remained to talk over the mishap. The game- 

 watcher thought, from the length and strength of his play, that 

 the fish must have been hooked by the body. He had never 

 seen him clear of the water, though ; and the river-guardian, 

 who had twice watched a clean leap from the surface, was of 

 a different opinion, maintaining that he distinctly perceived 

 this splendid salmon was fairly fixed by the mouth. The 

 sequel will show that in all likelihood he was correct. 



A fine dry night reduced the river to the smallest trim 

 possible for fishing. The chief prospect of success, therefore, 

 lay in trying an early cast, when my son hooked the only 

 salmon he rose in the pool of Dub-a-nee, and in five minutes 

 he was stranded on the shelving shingle. The fish was beauti- 

 fully shaped, although his time in the fresh water had slightly 

 tinged his colour with yellow. He rushed heedlessly round 

 the pool with the furious folly of a Thames chub, and was, in 

 consequence, tired out so easily. 



Eain fell in ceaseless torrents until the following day at 

 noon, when the clouds broke and the sun shone out gloriously. 

 Of course, a tremendous flood followed, which prevented fly- 

 fishing for twenty-four hours. Even after that time, there was 

 so great a rush of madder-brown-coloured water, that I chose 

 for my son's line a large, rather bright spring-fly. Three feed- 

 ing salmon appeared at intervals in Dub-a-nee two seemed 

 about 12 lb., and one in the far eddy we estimated at about 

 20 lb. in weight. The two lesser fish would not notice the 

 lure ; but the moment the long sweep reached the eddy, the 

 large salmon sprang up beautifully and " fastened." 



To play such a fish was the very luxury of angling. He 

 neither sulked nor spurted, but did his best to escape in fair 



