THE KINGLASS 145 



noon. Many years ago, when the Black Mount was let to the late 

 Lord Dudley — a very keen angler — he kindly gave me leave for a 

 day on the Kinglass during a July that I was spending on the Awe. 

 Patiently did I wait my opportunity, and when at last a heavy 

 thunderstorm came one evening, and my ghillie reported next 

 morning that the Awe was about a foot up, I at once started off to 

 tramp up to the Kinglass in expectation of a real good day. On 

 arriving at the mouth we found it dead low, the storm having missed 

 the hills which it drained, so after taking a walk up the river in a 

 very depressed state — for a tramp of some twenty miles all for 

 nothmg is depressing — we hastened back for a late cast on the Awe. 

 In reply to inquiries addressed to him by the Fishery Board 

 in 1888, Lord Breadalbane very wisely advocates a shortening 

 of the rod season, and suggests that for the rivers of these parts 

 the loth of October would be a much more suitable closing date 

 then the present 31st ; he also unites with the other proprietors 

 of the West Coast in complaints of the non-observance of the weekly 

 close time, of the poaching by yachts, and of the " enormously 

 increasing " poaching by scringing. 



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