FISHING ON SALT-WATER LOCHS. 439 



below the boathouse was very valuable water. Every warm 

 summer evening heavy creelfuls of the largest size of whiting 

 were brought home, besides a good many cod from three to 

 five pounds in weight. In those days any boat having ordi- 

 nary success would in a few hours, with hand-lines, land 

 enough fish to last a family for a week. Those times are 

 long gone by, and a party of the same number would think 

 themselves well repaid for their evening's work with four or 

 five dozen fish. Our takes during the three years we rented 

 Balliemore were thought very good for these degenerate days, 

 the creel holding sometimes eighty, seldom less than fifty, 

 white fish, in one small boat with two hand-lines. When, 

 however, our two boats, moored to the same anchor, fished in 

 company, the success was fully a third greater ; and had they 

 been independent, it would of course, in all likelihood, have 

 been doubled. 



The chief qualities for a hand-line are a fine touch and 

 ready hand. When one of the boats is manned by ladies, 

 and the other by men, both crews equally used to this line, 

 it is generally found that the ladies beat their rivals both in 

 numbers and weight of fish. This, no doubt, arises from their 

 fingers being keener to feel, and quicker to strike, the least 

 nibble at the bait. When a light wind arises, the difficulty 

 of noticing the touch of a small bite is much increased ; but 

 during a fresh breeze nothing but the sharp tug of a pretty 

 large one is at all likely to be felt. 



The loneliness of one of these evenings, in its setting of 

 matchless colouring in sky and sea and shore, united to a dash 

 of savage life, has a witchery all its own. 



As you row down to the banks, a fleet of " herring scows " 

 appear riding at anchor. The fishermen have landed, and are 

 gathered in picturesque groups on the rocks, listening to one 

 of their number perched above his fellows reading a crumpled 

 newspaper of ancient date. Suddenly there is a Gaelic shout, 

 and a rush to the boats, which are manned as if by magic. 



