LOCH SALMON-FISHING. 371 



attention constantly increases his stock of knowledge until he 

 feels certain he can hook them if they can be hooked. 



Where the rises are more numerous, there is not the same 

 pains taken to profit by them ; and this natural consequence 

 partly explains what I have also noticed in shooting viz., 

 that a man who has lived among preserves, far from being so 

 good a sportsman, is frequently not even to be compared as a 

 steady shot with another whose whole practice is over wild 

 unenclosed lands. The one blazes thoughtlessly away, com- 

 mitting time after time the same errors ; while the other notes 

 every miss, and endeavours to correct it next opportunity. 

 There is also no doubt that both the angler and shooter who 

 have to work and think for their sport, acquire a self-command 

 and nerve only to be obtained in this school. 



Although loch and river fishing seem distinct departments 

 of the craft, yet the more closely they are studied the nearer 

 do they approximate to each other. When white trout and 

 salmon enter a fresh loch, if there is no stream large enough 

 to ascend, they press to the mouths of the feeding burns ; or 

 should the loch itself be small, they first choose (as in rivers) 

 the feeding-grounds farthest from the sea, those nearer gradu- 

 ally filling with " back fish." They have favourite rocks and 

 banks all over the loch, exactly as they have favoured pools 

 and streams in rivers. Lochs, as well as rivers, are most suc- 

 cessfully fished when they fall after a heavy flood. In some 

 places of a loch, like some pools of a river, fish never rise well 

 at the fly, although the part of the loch and the pool of the 

 river may look very tempting to the angler. 



White trout and salmon creep down nearer the outlet of a 

 loch as autumn advances, preparatory to choosing their spawn- 

 ing-beds. The top of a small loch is therefore best early in 

 the year, the lower parts gradually improving as the season 

 draws on. If, however, the feeders of a loch are large enough 

 for fish to ascend, their first object is to seek these, and press 

 up them. In the smaller lochs the feeding burns may admit 



