THE HALLADALE 33 



river opens to the rod on the nth of January and closes on the 

 30th of September. The nets commence on the nth of February 

 and come off on the 26th of August. The Silver Doctor and Jock 

 Scot, from medium to the smallest sizes, are the favourite flies. A 

 grilse rod will do all the work easily ; indeed, a trout rod will do it 

 more comfortably. Knee boots or stockings may be wanted in 

 the spring while the water is large, but as soon as it falls to a medium 

 height no waders are necessary. The mouth is hard fished by 

 half a dozen bag-nets and a draft net and coble, which were once 

 very remunerative, but have now fallen off, owing to the excessive 

 slaughter of fish. 



The Fishery Board Report of 1888 states that from the net 

 fishings of the Strathy and Halladale, which cover some twenty 

 miles of coast, the yield of the three previous years was an average 

 of 900 salmon and 4000 grilse — rough on the grilse, and a certain 

 method of diminishing the supply of salmon. During these three 

 years, which gave 2700 salmon and 12,000 grilse, the rods took less 

 than 300 fish from the two streams ! 



The Halladale is another of the rivers for which Mr. Box, the 

 Duke of Sutherland's factor at Tongue, has so long, but, alas ! 

 so ineffectually, advocated a shortening of the netting time by 

 ten days, and making them cease to work on the 15th of August 

 instead of on the 26th. 



The average take of the river of late years is about sixty fish 

 a season, rather under than over. In April there are a few sea trout 

 to be got in the tidal water between Melvich Bridge and the sea ; 

 but this is open to anyone, and hard fished by the natives. 



The Melvich Hotel is one of those trouting centres from which 

 good loch fishing may be had by the public, for it can have the run 

 of some thirty lochs, which are very wisely restocked each season 

 with Loch Leven trout from the Brora Hatchery. 



When I was at Melvich, on the 6th of June, the hotel was so full 

 of trout fishers that there was not a bedroom to be had in it, and I 

 was quartered out. It was the first of these hotels I had stayed at, 

 but I found all of them about equally crowded. In Sutherland alone 

 there are ten of these trouting hotels, all of them fairly well managed. 

 They are those of Lairg, Forsinard, Altnaharra, Tongue, Durness, 

 Riconich, Scourie, Altnacealgach, Ichnadampf, and Loch Inver. 



The large sums spent by anglers for the privilege of catching 

 loch trout surprised me greatly. At the lowest computation the 

 hotel bill will come to 15s. a day ; the ghillie is 3s. 6d., with a further 

 IS. gd. for his lunch ; while more often than not there is another 

 5s. a day as a share of a machine. Here, then, we have numbers of 

 fishermen paying from 25s. to 30s. a day for the privilege of catching 

 from a dozen to four dozen loch trout, which, even with " hotel 

 weights," barely average three to the pound, and in many cases 

 very much less. The take will, of course, depend on the combined 

 skill of angler and boatman, with the state of the weather. Between 

 these ten hotels there are certainly a hundred anglers spending 25s. a 



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