120 SPINNING—LOSE A GOOD ONE. [PART I. 
not very livély work, I used in the mornings, be- 
fore we started together for the regular business 
of the day, to vary the sport by fly-fishing, or 
spinning from the shore with a small bait, or kill- 
devil, the pools below the house, picking up thus: 
a good many Trout, including some nice ones of 
from one to two pounds. 
Those parts at the heads and tails of the lochs, 
where the water was too confined or shallow for 
trailing, I used to spin over by casting out of the 
boat in the usual way, a plan which I found answer 
very well. On one occasion, at the tail of Loch 
Polery, in which we had been trailing, we saw 
a Salmon leap, as they not unfrequently do when 
they have surmounted the difficulties of the up- 
ward navigation, and find themselves in still water. 
Having my line all ready (with a gutta-percha 
kill-devil on, as it happened), I threw over the 
place where he had shewn himself. The bait was 
instantly taken, as I conceived of course, by the 
same fish, and away he went with it. Had all 
been clear, I have no doubt I could have killed 
him, but, unluckily, the outlet into the shallow 
broken water, into which we could not have 
followed him, was so near, and he shewed such 
an evident inclination to make for it, that I was 
