l62 THE SALMON! RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



with the same steep banks rising nearly sheer from the water side. 

 In the illustration, the angler in the pool is on the open side of it 

 and can use the overhead cast, which would be impossible if he 

 was fishing from the opposite bank with the high cliff rising behind 

 him. 



A httle below HoUen Bush is the Twa Stanes, in which pool 

 was drowned a servant of the late ;\Ir. Little Gilmour, who then 

 owned this fishery ; below this comes the Beaufort, so named by 

 Mr. Gilmour because the late Duke of that ilk, who was a keen 

 fisherman, once took a very hea\-y fish out of it when visiting 

 Delfur. The pools below this are Otter's Hole, Back o' the Broom, 

 the Collies, and the top part of the Boat o' Brig Pool, the bridge 

 forming the march between Delfur and Gordon Castle. 



Below this bridge comes two miles on each side of the Orton 

 water ; the banks, I believe, belong to Mrs. Wharton Duff, but 

 the Duke of Richmond owns the fishing right. Though the sections 

 I have named from Castle Grant downwards are the existing 

 divisions of the Spey, on some of them there are many private 

 arrangements with regard to various pools which no one is or can 

 be aware of, except the parties actually concerned ; but for aU 

 practical purposes my list of the Spey anghngs can be accepted as 

 correct. 



We now come to the last nine miles of the river, and from Boat 

 o' Brig to the sea both banks belong to the Duke of Richmond 

 and Gordon, and whether for net fishing, as long as nets may 

 legally be plied, or for rod fishing after the nets come off, there is 

 no question that this is the finest and most productive stretch of 

 water in Scotland. 



Into the netting question I do not intend to enter. The Spey, 

 like all the rivers, has been gradually going back, both in the yield 

 to nets and rods, although as a matter of fact it has not gone dowm 

 so much as many rivers in which there are no nets. In my humble 

 opinion it is not any given sets of nets that are reducing the salmon 

 fisheries to extinction, but it is the vast and ever increasing number 

 of fi.xed engines working round the whole of the Scotch coasts that 

 are the cause of the mischief. There is no doubt that the Fochabers 

 nets get a lot of fish, and bring in a large sum each season ; but 

 the fact that their past, present, and future o\\-ners are gentlemen 

 who have been, who are, and will be possessors in perpetuity is a 

 guarantee that netting will not be unduly pressed, as it would be 

 if it was in the hands of a tacksman with a short lease, who, as long 

 as he filled his own pockets, would be quite indifferent about the 

 eventual destruction of the fishery. ^Moreover, the fact that the 

 Duke of Richmond and all his family, ladies included, are keen 

 anglers, is a further guarantee that netting on his Grace's fishings 

 would not be prosecuted to an injurious extent. 



It must also not be forgotten that any netted river is certain 

 to get close times other than the law provides. Each 3'ear there 

 will be many days when floods, and sometimes ice, compel the nets 



