CHAPTER XXXIX 



THE SPEY 



Rises in Loch Spey in Inverness-shire, but a short distance from 

 the hiUs whose western slopes discharge their waters into the 

 Atlantic. With a drainage area of a thousand and ninety-seven 

 square miles, it is the largest but one of the Scotch rivers, and, after 

 a run of about a hundred miles, faUs into the North Sea at Gar- 

 mouth. From its source in Loch Spey it flows for nearly forty 

 miles through Inverness-shire Highlands, gathering volume from 

 many a small tributary, until some eight miles below Kingussie 

 it expands into Loch Insh, that beautiful sheet of water some two 

 miles in length, by the side of which the Highland Railway runs 

 to Inverness, offering to the sportsman an ideal panorama of hills, 

 valleys, woods, and waters rarely viewed from the window of a 

 railway carriage. There are stags on the hills, grouse on the moors, 

 salmon and trout in the loch, roe and pheasants in the covers, 

 partridges in the iields, and duck and snipe in plenty in the marshy, 

 reedy shores of Loch Insh. Here, though salmon and trout are 

 in plenty, yet they are " dour " in the extreme, and it is a rare 

 event to hear of a capture of either by rod. The fishing rights 

 go with the shootings of Dunachton and wdth Invereshie, each 

 of the tenants at times putting a net into the loch as the only 

 way of getting salmon or trout for the table. Of recent years, 

 however, these properties have foregone the exercise of their 

 netting right in accord with an agreement made with the lower 

 proprietors. 



From Loch Insh to the sea is about sixty miles, and a little 

 below Grantown the Spey leaves Inverness-shire to form the 

 march between the counties of Banff and Elgin, or Morayshire ; 

 and here I must say it is a silly and confusing arrangement for one 

 little county to have two names, for fancy the confusion that would 

 arise if aU followed the same plan ! 



The Spey angling commences about the top of Lady Seafield's 

 Castle Grant water. Between Granto\\'n and Loch Insh there are 

 very few pools or catches, and though above Loch Insh a certain 

 number of autumn fish are got in the main river and in the Feshie 

 and the Tromie, the angling is not worth serious discussion. 



The chief proprietors between Grantown and Fochabers are the 

 Countess of Seafield, Sir John Macpherson Grant of BaUindalloch, 

 Mr. J. \V. H. Grant of Carron and Wester Elchies, I\Ir. J. R. Findlay 



