14 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



the hooks : get him out of this situation, and away he goes, 

 ahnost towing your boat after him. Then is the time for your 

 boatman to make play to keep up with the fish and save your 

 line ; for a twenty-pound Salmo ferox ^ is no ignoble foe to 

 contend with when you have him at the end of a common 

 fishing-line : he appears to have the strength of a whale as he 

 rushes away. 



I was crossing Loch Ness alone one evening with my rod 

 at the stern of the boat, with my troUing-tackle pn it trailing 

 behind. Suddenly it was seized by a large trout, and before I 

 could do anything but take kold of my rod he had run out 

 eighty yards of line, and bent my stiff trolling-rod like a willow, 

 carrying half the rod under water. The loch was too deep for 

 me, and he snapped the line in an instant, the rod and the 

 twenty yards of line which remained jerking back into the air, 

 and sending the water in a shower of spray around. Comparing 

 the strength of this fish with that of others which I have killed 

 when trolling, he must have been a perfect water- monster. 

 Indeed I have little doubt that the immense depths of Loch 

 Ness contain trout as large, if not larger, than are to be found 

 in any other loch in Scotland. 



For fly-fishing in lakes, it is difficult to give any rule as to 

 the colour and size of your fly. The best thing you can do is 

 to find out some person whose experience you can depend on, 

 and who has been in the habit of fishing in the particular water 

 where you want to try your own skill, for most lakes have a 

 favourite fly. I have always, when at a loss, had recourse to 

 a red, white, or black palmer. There are very few trout who 

 can withstand these flies when well made. The size of the 

 palmer should depend on the roughness or smoothness of the 

 water. On a dark windy day I have frequently found a white 

 palmer succeed when nothing else would tempt the fish to rise ; 



' Mr. Colquhoun contributed a very interesting chapter on this fish to the Field paper 

 (13th November 1880), from which a few sentences are extracted. The largest feroxes 

 talten in Scotland, not even excepting Loch Awe, have been taken out of Loch Rannoch, 

 but of late years the constant trailing of spoons and other gaudy baits over them has 

 made the very large fish of all our trolling lochs so shy that few will run at any trolling 

 bait.. The largest Mr. Colquhoun has ever known to be taken in Loch Awe by rod was 

 twenty-one pounds. At Loch . Rannoch, in twenty-eight years, three of twenty-three, 

 twenty-two, and twenty pounds' weight have been taken. Feroxes are sometimes hooked 

 with a trout-fly when from three to six pounds, but he has never known a large one so 

 taken, though he once saw a ferox of seventeen pounds taken at the head of Loch Awe 

 with a large spring, salmon-fly. Many so-called large feroxes are often found to be kelt 

 salmon. 



