58 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



these days the take for the season used to be from 200 to 300 fish, 

 and now it averages from fifty to sixty ! ! ^ 



Adam Macaulay, the stalker at Stack Lodge, has known the river 

 for twenty-five years, and is acquainted with every stone, and 

 tells me that there are not nearly one quarter of the fish on the 

 spawning beds now that there used to be twenty years ago, when he 

 was accustomed to see fully a hundred pairs in about the three 

 himdred yards of beds below Stack Bridge, while from ten to twelve 

 couple were the most he could count last year ! 



" The capricious Laxford," as the late Duke used to call it, 

 although fed by two large lochs, yet rises and falls very quickly, 

 for the surrounding hUls are steep and the rain pours off them at once. 

 Its salmon average 11 lb., the grilse 5J lb., and the sea trout i lb. 

 It is but of little use fishing it before the 20th of June, unless there 

 has been a spate just before that date. I fished it on the 17th of 

 that month with Adam Macaulav as guide, and a pleasanter one could 

 not be wished for ; the river was then low, and beyond rising one 

 fish twice I saw no sign of salmon, and Lord Zetland had had a try 

 a few days previously with no better success. 



July and August are the best months, and then salmon, grilse, 

 and sea trout all come together. Fine tackle, a sixteen-foot rod, 

 and small flies of the standard patterns wiU do all that is necessary. 

 It is seldom that any other lure is used, although one season, when 

 Lord Cairns had Stack Lodge, he caught a few with the pra\\-n ; 

 but by the middle of September the fish are turning colour, and 

 certainly rod fishing should end on the 15th of October, if not on the 

 30th of September. 



There are twenty-one good pools from Stack Lodge to the sea, 

 and commencing with that immediate^ below the loch, they come 

 as follows : Top Pool, a fine pool and one of the best ; fished from 

 a jetty. The Hon. E. Coke had five here one day. Stream Pool ; 

 Mrs. Coke's Pool, fishes best in big water ; the Corner Pool ; the 

 Boat Pool ; here Lord Leicester had a very big fish on for four hours, 

 which broke off without ever being seen. Lord Anson's or the Island 

 Pool, a deep still one ; the Duke's Pool, the best on the river ; the 

 head of it is a strong rush through a rocky gorge which wU fish even 

 in very low water ; below, it opens out into a splendid pool of some 

 length. As many as fourteen fish in the day have been taken here, 

 but not of late years. The Duchess Pool, also a sure cast, and fished 

 from a jetty of half-circle shape ; the Rock Pool ; Lord Belgrave's 

 Pool, a high water catch ; Fern Pool, a long one ; John Macleod's 

 Pool, a rocky run ; Mr. Leache's Pool — out of this Lord Henry 

 Grosvenor took eighty sea trout one day ; Claughton's Pool ; Brae 

 Pool, a good long one — here Lady Mabel Coke rose ten fish, which 

 mostly came short, but four were landed. Lord Dudley's Pool ; 

 he had the fishing before the present tenants ; below this are the old 

 cruives. The Shepherd's Pool ; the Bridge Pool. 



' Lochmore Lodge, with the stalking and angling, remains in the hands 

 of the present Duke. 



