of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



277 



The Blackwater. 



On the 18th June, during a cold and rainy day, I drove 14 miles from 

 Stornoway to the inn at Garynahine, near which the Blackwater, the 

 second largest and second best salmon river in the Lews, Hows into the 

 head of Loch Roag. Nearly a score of lochs belong to its basin. The 

 Blackwater is a late river, and the earliest fish caught in it for 7 years 

 was taken on the 2nd of June last. The best fishing months are July, 

 August, and September. A former lessee of the Blackwater dammed up 

 the outlet of one of the lochs connected with it and constructed sluices 

 so that an artificial flood could be let down at pleasure, to meet the high 

 spring tides which bring the fish up to the rivers' mouth which they 

 enter, wind and water permitting. The attempt was successful, and the 

 gentleman who made it writes thus of the result : — 



I found the experiment answer perfectly, and over and over again I ascer- 

 tained to demonstration that the fish took the river with my artificial, just as 

 they would with a natural spate. By the same process I also sent to sea early 

 the foul fish. 



Though this has proved a decided success and has greatly benefited 

 the angling on the Blackwater, yet, strange to say, the same experiment 

 was tried on the Grimersta, the best salmon river in the Lews^ 

 which also falls into Loch Roag, and entirely failed in producing 

 the desired effect, though it was continued for several years. A 

 dam and sluices were erected at the outlet of Loch Langavat, by far 

 the largest sheet of water in the Hebrides, which feeds both the river 

 Grimersta and the lochs in its basin on which boats are kept by the 

 lessees of the fishings. The object, of course, was that when the river 

 was low and fish waiting in Loch Roag to ascend, they might be 

 induced to do so by raising the sluices and sending down an artificial 

 flood from the wide expanse of Loch Langavat. The experiment was 

 repeatedly tried but always failed. Some inscrutable instinct seemed 

 to enable the salmon to discern that the water from this spring-fed 

 mountain lake was different from a rain flood. They entered the river 

 indeed, but the water seemed soon to sicken them and drive them from 

 the two lochs immediately below Loch Langavat, from whence the 

 ponded up water issued into the lower lakes, and comparatively few fish 

 were caught in these upper lochs ; while, in the two lochs, farthest from 

 the sluices and nearest the sea, the fishing was rather improved. The 

 gillies termed this artificial flood 'rotten water.' The result was, that 

 the sluices were removed and nature was left to do her work unaided. L 

 am unable to say why this experiment of a dam and sluices and an 

 artificial flood should have failed in the case of the Grimersta, and have 

 proved a success in the case of the Blackwater, as both rivers fall into 

 the head of Loch Roag, and their mouths are only a couple of miles 

 distant from each other. 



Two streams, one rising in Loch Tairbert, and the other in Loch Leoid, 

 unite to form the Blackwater, and between the junction of these two and 

 the sea, there are several magnificent streams and pools on the main river ; 

 what is known as the ' Big Pool ' with the stream running into it being 

 the crack cast on the river. Below this, there is a long stretch of deep 

 still water with banks somewhat overhanging. This is generally full of 

 fish, but it needs a strong wind to strike upon it before they will rise 

 freely. Occasionally, however, splendid sport has been obtained, 

 as many as 26 salmon having been taken out of it by a single rod in 

 one day. But the Blackwater and Grimersta were not always as 

 good salmon rivers as they are to-day, when, for a long term of years, 



