SPRING FISHING IN LOCH ARD. 235 
for March, April, or early May, being perhaps 75 per 
cent below anything that ought to be called good fish- 
ing in genial and abounding June. Let it be con- 
sidered, too, that what some people not quite correctly 
term “excessively moderate” fishing, at a time when 
the appetite for the sport has been whetted by the 
long winter’s abstinence, really gives as much plea- 
sure as does much better or more productive fishing at 
a later season, when greater things are naturally to be 
looked for. Therefore, when we say that good fishing 
is to’be hadin March and April, and that the best 
place in Scotland to get that fishing is Loch Ard, on 
the borders between Perthshire and Stirlingshire, we 
mean that the fishing is good for these early months, 
and for that particular district, which—witness the 
black and barren waters of the Lennox—is on the 
whole no angling paradise. The extent of commen- 
dation meant to be bestowed on Loch Ard is simply 
this—that there you may get, on an average day, a 
dozen, a dozen and a half, and occasionally two dozen 
trout, of very fine quality, and weighing nearly three 
quarters of a pound each, at that early period when 
it is spring in the almanack and nowhere else, and 
when trout-fishing in almost all other districts of 
Scotland is a depressing and desperate enterprise. 
Tt is by no means clear, and indeed nothing in 
that department is clear, why Loch Ard should fish 
earlier than almost any other loch and than any river 
