BAITING A POOL 449 



Strongest senses possessed by fish, and if a pool is 

 baited overnight, it will be full of fish the next day, 

 the smell of the bait being doubtless carried down the 

 stream to the pools below. When thus baiting a pool, 

 it is as well to protect some of the worms from the fish 

 by tying them up in canvas bags, so as not to over- 

 gorge the fish and thereby spoil the next day's sport. 

 There are several other baits, other than worms, which 

 can be made use of for the purpose, but worms are 

 ever the most successful, by reason of their stronger 

 scent. 



Once, when baiting a pool on the Beauly, I was 

 surprised to see some enormous eels come down stream 

 to the bait, and I could never understand how they 

 could have scented the bait from up-stream, unless 

 it might have been by means of some eddy or back- 

 water which I could not observe. Eels are, doubtless, 

 strangely cute fish, and their travelling up and down 

 stream, and at times on dry land during their migration, 

 is very interesting. In Scotland, at all events in the 

 Highlands, eels are despised as food, and are of but 

 little market value, compared with the price they 

 obtain in Eno^land and Ireland. The Highlander 

 deems the eel unfit for food, whereas the English and 

 Scotch esteem them as being a very great delicacy ; an 

 opinion in which, if they are properly cooked, I myself 

 most thoroughly concur. 



In a previous page I have made mention that the 

 late Lord Lovat, when Master of Lovat, made a bet 

 that he would kill a trout on a cobweb line. The bet 

 was made with Colonel Sir R. Taylor, the colonel of 

 the 79th Highlanders, and the fish was to be killed 

 within a certain time. Lord Lovat failed to do so in 



29 



