THE SHIN 



73 



The best day in May ever had by Sir James was in i8S6, when 

 he took eight fish, weighing 98 lb. One day in May 1883 he had 

 no less than nineteen rises in the day, only seven hooking and all 

 being landed. 



Now, from the foregoing statistics of 1892 to 1895, it will be 

 seen the Shin has yielded 984 salmon and grilse, or an average of 

 246 tish each season, and reckoning that as six months, for the 

 Irrst and last few days of the season are not of much use, then the 

 average take per month has been forty-one fish, which does not 

 read very grand sport for the /^loo paid. Yet withal these 

 forty-one irsh are well-nigh a certainty, and experienced anglers 

 are quite aware they might go elsewhere, pay more, and fare worse, 

 so they stick to the Shin and take the luck of the seasons as they 

 come. 



Such a state of affairs, however, may well lead anglers to ask 

 each other why they should not more often combine together, 

 and by renting nets or paying for an extra twelve or twenty-four 

 hours' weekly close time, double their sport at a small increased 

 cost ? And this I am certain is feasible on many rivers. In 1898 

 the Duke of Sutherland sold to Mr. Andrew Carnegie of Skibo 

 Castle the anghng rights on the Shin from Gruid's Mill to the Kyle, 

 a purchase which created a great flutter of excitement amongst 

 the old rod-holders, all of them expecting to get notice to quit. 

 A pleasant surprise, however, awaited them, and in reply to an 

 inquiry of mine, Mr. Carnegie instructed his secretary to write as 

 follows : " Mr. Carnegie desires me to say that he is not rash 

 enough to make any changes in the Shin. Some of the renters 

 have had it for thirty years, and if they were deprived of fishing 

 the Shin, Mr. Carnegie is so enthusiastic a brother of the angle 

 himself as to know that serious consequences might ensue, and he 

 does not wish to have the collapse of any of these fishermen on his 

 guilty conscience." 



A very pleasant way of putting matters, for it is not everyone 

 who is a keen angler that would have been so self-denying ; Mr. 

 Carnegie, however, is not quite out of touch with his purchase, 

 and has made arrangements by which he can take a cast when he 

 is at Skibo. 



In 1897 all the Kyle nets, with the exception of those of Skibo, 

 were rented by my old friend. Captain G. W. Hunt, with a view 

 to the immediate improvement of angling, and the ultimate better- 

 ing of the netting ; ill-health unluckily compelled him to give up 

 in the year following, when fortunately another gentleman. Dr. H. 

 H. Almond, stepped into his shoes with similar good intentions. 

 He writes me: "For the last two years the Bonar nets have been 

 taken off at 6 p.m. on Friday instead of Saturday, or to be even 

 more accurate, they were this year (1898) taken off on Thursdays 

 at 6 p.m. for March and April and fished full time in May. The 

 two upper nets have also been put on later than they used to be, 

 and have been fished very httle in August, and as a matter of fact 



