THE NAVER 63 



Pool ; Beat 4 from Ravigill to Achalmie ; Beat 5 from Upper 

 Camasby to Dunvedin ; Beat 6 from Dunvedin to Naver Bridge. 



At the head of No. i, near where the river leaves the loch, there 

 are the falls of the Mallart, which have been laddered in recent years, 

 so that the fish can pass up at any time. Before this was carried out 

 they could only ascend at a certain height of water, which eventually 

 came and took the fish up the falls to the spawning grounds. It is 

 the opinion of some of the Naver anglers that this ladder has to a 

 great extent spoilt this No. i Beat, for before the days of the ladder, 

 when fish became numerous in the Fall Pool, as soon as they found 

 they could not pass up they fell back into the top pools of the beat, 

 where they gave good sport. Some are also of opinion that a dam 

 above the Creich Pool, a little distance below the loch, would much 

 improve the top beats, by forcing the fish that could not pass over 

 it with a medium water to fall back and stock the pools below until a 

 flood came sufficiently heavy to take them up. A dam of this sort 

 was once made a little below the exit from the loch, and though 

 personally I do not think that fish once arrived there would ever 

 drop back to stock the pools much below, as expected, the question, 

 as far as that particular dam was concerned, never had any chance 

 of being settled, as the first flood washed it away. 



With regard to this, I have frequently seen numbers of fish arrive 

 in a fall pool to wait for water to take them up, and there they 

 stayed, massed together, and, without dropping back to pools below, 

 there they stood out the drought, waiting patiently till the rainfall 

 came. 



It is certainly a very curious thing that the Naver take each 

 season does not grow better and better instead of falling off ; there 

 must be a reason for this, which certainly is not over-netting at the 

 mouth. To the west there are no bag-nets, and to the east none for 

 some distance. Probably poaching, coupled with the disregard of 

 the weekly close time by the bag-nets are the causes. I beheve it 

 would pay the Naver, Thurso, Borgie, and Halladale to employ a 

 couple of English keepers each season, who would have no scruples 

 about visiting the coast nets on the Sabbath. I am certain they 

 would at first find plenty of bag-nets setting the law and the weekly 

 close time at defiance ; but let the rods prosecute and prosecute, 

 and listen to no excuses, and in a short time I believe they would 

 be repaid handsomely for an outlay which, if shared between the 

 rods of these rivers, could not come to a very large sum per head. 

 Two clever men, provided with good glasses, could also do a good 

 deal towards watching the movements of the steam trawlers. 



The heaviest fish killed on the Naver weighed 35!^ lb., and was 

 taken on the 6th of April 1891 on Beat No. 6, with a " Warrior," by 

 the late Mr. Percy H. Wormald. 



In February 1875, Mr. Alexander Machardy, fishing the Syre 

 rod on Beat 6, had eight good fish in one day. Later, two anglers 

 in the spring had eleven fish in one day. Mr. Pilkington of Sand- 

 side, fishing the Dalvina rods, had a day of ten grilse and one 



