CHAPTER II. 
Having reference to the Solway Fishery—Loch Kinder and its trout—Loch Leven 
trout—An angler's paradise—Poachers—Nature's motive power. 
fe angler’s paradise!” Three words that are at once sug- 
gestive to the lover of the rod of a wonderfully pleasing 
sensation. And such were the words that escaped the lips of one 
of the pleasantest and most agreeable anglers who ever visited the 
Solway Fishery. It came about in this way. I had been down 
the coast yachting for a few days, studying some of the denizens. 
of the deep sea with a view to their cultivation, and on my return 
found a card had been left by a visitor who had called to see my 
fish ponds, and who was described to me as taking great interest 
in the work, and who, after seeing part of what was to be seen 
had exclaimed, ‘‘ What an angler’s paradise !” 
It struck me as being a most refined and appropriate ex- 
pression, in few words, of the feelings of one who afterwards proved 
himself to be one of the best anglers I had ever come across. He 
always caught fish, and what was more, he got them when nobody 
else could catch them, and in the most skilful and sportsmanlike 
manner. On loch or stream it was the same. One day I lent 
him my boat on a loch where other people seemed to have only 
indifferent success, and he soon captured over forty pounds of 
pike and perch, some of the latter being about three pounds in 
weight. 
It is rather amusing to note the exclamations of visitors on 
being shown round my fish ponds, expressive possibly of pretty 
much the same kind of feeling, but certainly varying a good deal 
in phraseology. My friend to whom I have just referred gave 
vent to his feelings once and for all in three very expressive words. 
Another interested party kept on continually uttering the words. 
