CHAPTER XXVI 



THE DEE 



This Aberdeenshire river, the sixth largest in Scotland, drains 

 an area of eight hundred and twenty-four square miles. It rises 

 from two sources in Mar Forest : one, near the summit of Ben 

 MacDhui, is close on four thousand feet above sea-level ; and the 

 other, at a nearly similar altitude, flows from a little below the top 

 of Braeriach. From these two springs the Dee runs clear and 

 rapid for over ninety miles through every variety of Highland and 

 Lowland scenery, and during its whole course there are no weirs 

 or pollutions. Some ten miles below the fountain-heads there are 

 a series of four smaU falls, called the Linn of Dee, which, however, 

 do not offer any bar to the ascent of fish. Nets and rods commence 

 on the nth of February, the two seasons ending respectively on 

 the 26th of August and the 31st of October. 



Although there is no month in the year but what some clean 

 fish come into the river, there are three great and distinct runs of 

 fish, viz. that of the early spring, the summer, and the autumn. 

 About the middle of May, grilse and sea trout commence to show, 

 while in March and April, and again in September and October, 

 finnocks or whitUng (the grilse of the sea trout) are very numerous 

 in the lower reaches ; these seldom come far up the river, rarely 

 above Banchory, although I remember at the end of one April, in 

 1889, after a prolonged spell of high water, catching from under the 

 Suspension Bridge at Aboyne a good dish of nineteen finnocks with 

 the natural minnow. Spring fish weigh from 6 to 12 lb., but the 

 average may be taken as 10 lb. In April 1S99, I had one from the 

 north side of the Boat Pool of the Glen Tana water of 25 lb., and 

 every year a few of these heavy spring fish are got, though they are 

 the exception. It would seem, however, that the average weight 

 is very slowly but surely increasing, for when I first went to the 

 Blackhall water in 1869 with the late JNIr. Thomas Simpson, the 

 average weight of the spring fish was but 7 lb., while nowadays it 

 has increased to 10 lb. ; so there is a hope that in another thirty 

 years it may become 13 lb., which would be a fine one. In contrast 

 to the twenty-five pounder from Glen Tana, I took in the February of 

 that same season from Bellwood Pool, on the Aboj-ne Hotel water, 

 a salmon of 4 J lb., the smallest I have ever caught or even seen, and 

 probably there are dwarf salmon as well as dwarfed people and 

 animals. 



