20 MEMOIR. 



the Divie junction. The night had been stormy, with heavy rain, and 

 although I expected "she" would "grow" in the course of the day, I 

 thought that by an early start I might get a few hours' fishing before 

 the water came down, especially as fish very often take greedily just before 

 a grow. I was at the river by 4 A.M., and commenced at Rannoch 

 (Randolph's Leap). I found the water much as I left " her " the night 

 before, small and clear, the only chance of fish being just in the white 

 broken water at the throats of streams, or in the deep holes amongst the 

 rocks. Rannoch is fishable only from one small ledge or bench, about 

 two feet square, and 25 feet above the level of the water, to which bench 

 you must scramble down the face of the rock, and from this spot you 

 fish the whole pool, beginning with the line as the fly comes off the bar 

 of the reel, and letting out yard by yard till the fly is working in the 

 " spoots " or narrow rapids, 80 to 90 feet down the stream. If you 

 hook him you must play and kill him in the pool, if possible, your gillie 

 clipping him on a small bed of gravel down below your feet, it being 

 impossible to follow him if he takes down the water, from the small two- 

 feet-square ledge, without first ascending to the footpath, and redescend- 

 ing to the bed of the river; this you cannot manage with a fish on, 

 owing to trees and projecting rocks. The pool is fished from the right 

 bank. 



Well, I rose him at my feet almost at the first throw, to a small fly 

 about half an inch long ; * he came deep and shy three times, and re- 

 fused to take it or any other. I guessed him at about 1 7 Ibs. Leaving him 

 to his own reflections, after making an appointment with him for a later 

 hour, I tried the pools above, hurrying along to the best spots in antici- 

 pation of the water rising. I worked till eight o'clock, keeping on the 

 same fly described before. I had more than average sport, killing four 

 good new-run fish, viz., one of 12 Ibs., one 10 Ibs., and two of 9 Ibs. At 

 eight, the water beginning to grow, I reeled up, and rushed down to 

 Rannoch to show my early friend another fly ; but "the water having 

 fairly commenced to grow, I put on a fly above two inches long,f and 

 the tippet being triple gut, I, by an interposition of Providence, put on 

 a triple casting line. Having cautiously descended to my stand, I showed 



* Black floss silk body with golden orange tag, gold cord and silver speel, 

 claret hackle with jay at shoulder ; wing mixture of good mottled fibres and a gold 

 crest, head yellow wool and tail of crest and fibres. 



t Body yellow pig's wool, rough Spey hackle, and bright full wing. 



