38 
THE PISHING GAZETTE 
[January 21, 1893 
he heard a voice from the opposite bank shouting, 
‘ Get out of that, and quick, too.’ This was the 
farmer, who owns the land on both sides of the 
stream. The shouting increased in vigour, but 
it liad all the same effect, and the angler kept on 
his way. The farmer now got furious, and it 
would appear determined to summarily put a stop 
to what had been going on for some time. lie 
limped into his boat, which was lying handy, and 
paddled hnrriedly across, vowing vengeance all 
the time on the angler. But that disciple of 
gentle old Izaak seemed utterly indifferent, and, 
without either mending his pace or stopping for 
explanation, kept on. The farmer, having reached 
the bank, pulled his boat slightly up, which the 
angler did not fail to notice. A few hasty strides 
and he was almost on the transgressor, but as he 
made the grand clutch our gentle piscator, who 
is a famous athlete, and has some confidence in 
his sprinting powers, jinked the fat old boy and 
dashed to the boat, into which he jumped, and 
was out of harm’s reach with a few pulls of the 
oars. Fatsides was neatly done, and had not 
even the presence of mind to use any of the 
])lenty of stones that lay handy. Thus parted 
fisher and farmer, the former to enjoy an after¬ 
noon’s good sport, the latter to trudge four or 
five miles round by the nearest bridge to his 
farm-house, unless someone turned up to take his 
boat to the other side to ferry him across. How 
he enjoyed it must be left to the imagination.’’ 
Notwithstanding the tremendous amount of 
poaching which prevails, the Tweedside sheriffs 
come it very mild on the puir salmon-poachers 
of the district. It seems hardly credible, yet it 
actually is the case, that for having eight salmon 
a man was recently fined only the very paltry 
sum, expenses and all, of £5 13s. 9d.; and another, 
for having six, besides a leister, the mere trifle of 
.£4 19s. lOd. It surely cannot be said that some 
at least of the Tweedside sheriffs err on the 
severe side. If the Tweedside Commissioners 
are accused of being severe, the Tweedside law¬ 
givers, who have to deal with their cases, can 
hardly, we think, be charged with the same fault. 
IVe much fear that merciful sentences only have 
a tendency to make the law less regarded and 
dreaded. The Aberdeen sheriffs salt the salmon- 
])oachers much more effectually, often mulcting 
them in fines heavier than either of the above 
named, for having in their possession not more 
than a single salmon. 
Salmon-spawning in the Tweed is very back-® 
ward in consequence of the character which the 
weather has maintained for a considerable time. 
Lately a number of bailiffs and fishermen have 
been engaged near Kelso in netting for the 
purpose of procuring ova for artificial hatching. 
The operations have been attended with con¬ 
siderable difficulty in consequence of the immense 
quantity of ice. Fish, however, were found to 
be iu large numbers, as proved by the fact that 
about 200 were got with two sweeps of the net. 
With reference to the male salmon digging the 
redds, another correspondent writes : “ Mr. Archi¬ 
bald Harper is wrong about the male fish digging; 
the female does it all. Off the Brig O’Perth 
scores of fish can be seen spawning, yet 1 have 
never once seen a male digging.” Mr. Harper 
sticks to his guns. He says : “ You seem to dis¬ 
agree with me too ; I repeat the male fish do dig. 
'I’here is a small burn here up which they go, and 
each will have one or more holes dug before the 
females arrive. The water falls rapidly, so that 
sometimes we have to help the fish back to the 
river, occasionally carrying them over the 
shallows. Early last spawning season we put 
nine males back, but only one female. Each of 
the former had one or more redds dug out. The 
following are the names of those who were with me 
at the work : Wm. Stratton, Hugh Mackay, John 
Smclair, and George Gunn. Write them and they 
will prove what I have said. I don’t care what 
is said in Major Traherne’s book by the person you 
name. There is no stronger proof than mine.” 
A CORRESPONDENT in the district of the Naver 
and Borgie, whose rod season has now commenced, 
writes: “Not a thing done in fishing yet, and 
nothing else of consequence to communicate. 
Snow and frost on the land, and trawlers by the 
dozen on the sea.” 
Mr. Donald Watson, tackle maker, Inglis-street, 
Inverness, writes : “ The Ness, you know, never 
freezes; and I am glad to say the spawning 
season has been a very good one indeed. The 
river has kept all that could be desired for spawn¬ 
ing purposes—medium in size ever since the 
spawning commenced, and fish have been very 
plentiful, in fact the water baillies inform me 
that they have never seen so many in the spawn¬ 
ing season. The Ness Castle water, I am pleased 
to inform you, has been let to Lord Mount- 
Stephen for the coming season. It is the best 
stretch of the River Ness. Last season, owing to 
the death of Mr. Fountane Walker, the proprietor, 
it was not fished so much as usual, yet in three 
months, August to October inclusive, it yielded 
196 fish.” 
“ G. M. M.,” our Deeside correspondent, writes : 
“The snowfall and attendant gale of the past 
week will have their due effects when the spring 
begins to wane and summer suns beat upon the 
miniature glaciers they have formed among the 
Grampians. Till now the accumulations have 
been insignificant. Seaward from the Bridge of 
Potarch, below the falls, and along the main 
stream to Braemar, the river has been bridged 
over with ice for long distances. The weather 
still presents a very hard character. It is time 
there was a thorough thaw on the Dee, if the 
0 ]iening of the season is to be of much account. 
Deer fat is the best grease to rub lines. Lamb or 
sheep suet comes next, but bullock suet is to be 
requisitioned when none of the former can be had. 
Animal fats are to be preferred to either vegetable 
or mineral oils, as they transmit a greater 
bouyancy. The proverbial phrase, ‘ luck in 
angling,’ was truly verified on the Lower Dess 
Dee water late last autumn. A gentleman of the 
broadcloth, from England somewhere, went out 
on his essay, and landed three, or else four, fine 
salmon in one day. Good for a novice who never 
handled a salmon rod before. He had fished trout, 
however, and easily merged into the ways of 
Salmo salar. Nothing can yet be said as to the 
prospects of the season on the Dee. The Nether 
Don fishings are let to a number of rods at £4 4.s. 
per rod for the season. This is a rise of 100 per 
cent, on the rental some years ago. Major Paton, 
of the Grandholme Don waters, is a liberal patron 
to his poorer brother anglers, and a day’s fishing 
is no sooner asked than granted, provided the 
request has not been repeated too often. There 
was a talk last autumn of a fine tidal lake being 
formed on the tidal reach of the Ythan, which 
would give an ingress and egress to sea-trout and 
finnock at high water, and thus afford a sort of 
loch fishing all day long. We wish the scheme 
every success, and only hope the most energetic 
proprietor of the Udny Arms may go on with it 
and receive influential backing up.” 
Our Invernesshire correspondent writes: 
“ Seeing that the salmon angling season opens in 
less than three weeks’ time, anglers will naturally 
be making up their minds where they should go 
to get really good sport as cheap as possible, and 
I think it but right to remind them of the splendid 
sport got last spring on Loch Ness, when over 
fifty salmon were landed by visitors at the Fort 
Augustus Hotel alone, from Feb. 11 to the end of 
March, besides what were got by anglers at 
Foyers and Invermoriston Hotels. The frosty 
weather experienced here since Christmas week 
tended to lower the rivers below summer level, 
and I am confident that no fish have yet got up, 
so that anglers at the lower and middle reaches 
will have the chance of the first run of fish— 
quite an unusual occurrence. I hear that a few 
pools on the Ness are literally crammed with 
salmon, which, owing to the lowness of the water, 
cannot get up further. The prospects for the 
opening of the Garry and Loch Oich will all 
depend on the next fortnight’s weather. Should 
there be a flood shortly the prospects will be 
good; but, on the other hand, if there is a con¬ 
tinuance of the present frosty weather, I would 
not give much for the first two or three weeks’ 
sport. Loch Oich has been frozen over for the 
last three weeks, and was only kept open for 
traffic by an ice-breaking appliance used by the 
Caledonian Canal Company. The fishings of 
Loch Oich and River Garry are in the hands 
of John Balfour, Esq., of Balbirnie, and Lord 
Berkeley Paget is to fish them for the first six 
weeks. Mr. Davis, of the Fort Augustus Hotel, 
has this season again secured the angling on the 
River Oich, and, I understand, he has let it to the 
gentlemen that had it last season. The prospects 
are excellent.” 
Mr. Archibald Harper, Halkirk, writes : “ A 
thaw has come and gone; it was a favourable 
one in this district; there was no rain, and the 
quantity of snow on the ground was not sufficient 
to cause a big spate. The river rose to medium 
flood. The ice broke up, and was carried down 
in large quantities; it was from four to eight 
inches thick. Any kelts that were killed by it 
must have been carried right away, as the water 
kept well within its channel, whei-eas a high 
flood would have thrown them out on the banks. 
I hold that a small spate with a crush of ice is 
more ruinous to the spawn beds than a high one. 
In a small spate the ice grates on the bottom and 
often gets ‘ blocked ’ on shallows where the 
spawn IS deposited; then it does most damage, 
tearing up the gravel and stones from the bottom, 
whereas a high flood lifts the ice well above the 
redds, and there is less ‘blocking.’ Some people 
cry out against high floods with ice, I don’t agree 
with them. Snow and frost again with us, and 
the river down to almost summer level. I don’t 
think any salmon could have come up with the 
spate. A lot of five swans, and another lot of 
three, passed over Brawl Castle on Monday. 
Mr. Rankin, gamekeeper, went in pursuit, and 
after they had settled he shot two of them by 
the river. About the same time he shot one 
merganser, three gooseanders, one heron, one 
cormorant, and one water ousel. Not a bad day’s 
work; the riveris well rid of these fish-eatei s. The 
swans were young birds and not in good plumage. 
It is rare to see swans here at this season.” 
Fishermen-poachers have done a fine thing 
about Aberdeen, lately, taking salmon out of the 
tideway and inshore waters, where, in con.se- 
quence of their inland passage being cut off by ice, 
they have accumulated very fast for about three 
weeks past. _ 
Our Spey correspondent writes : “ Since writ¬ 
ing you a fortnight ago, we have experienced very 
severe weather, the frost having been the most 
intense for many years, so much so, that such a 
swift running river as the Spey was crossed by 
foot passengers on the ice below Rothes. A 
partial thaw set in some days ago, but up to 
Monday last it must have been only very partial, 
for there was no signs of descending ice, such as 
would have been the case had there been a ten¬ 
dency to a general break up. It is to be hoped 
that the thaw will hold and come gradually, fora 
sudden thaw would “ play the deuce ” with the 
spawning bed^, many of which are now partly 
above water level and in shallow water. Up 
to within almost the end of last week, salmon 
had not been visible for a fortnight or so 
previous to that. I visited a redd on Sunday, 
and found several hard at work in a mill 
stream quite close up to the water’s edge. I was 
astonished to find water at so low a level, lower 
in fact than during an ordinary summer drought, 
and also to find that with the action of the high 
autumnal waters and the flood of December, the 
channel of the river had narrowed considerably. 
From this it is feared that the amount of ova 
destroyed must be very considerable even now, 
on the unprotected redds, which cannot be few.” 
Anglers will by and bye be overhauling their 
stock of fishing gear. Lines, gut traces, aud 
hooks will be taken through hand. It is of little 
value testing these in a dry condition. Immerse 
these first of all in water at blood heat for thirty 
minutes, and then try them. 
The pollution of the Aberdeenshire Dee will 
in all likelihood occupy the attention of a parlia¬ 
mentary committee early in the spring. The 
City of Aberdeen wants to look to the disposal of 
the sewage at Kincardine O’Neil, Aboyne and 
Braemar, and are asking powers from Parliament 
to do so. The County Council committee on 
Deeside think they are quite capable of managing 
their own affairs, and are to oppose the Aberdeeii 
Bill. A trip to London is in store for some of us. 
The opposition is headed by the Marquis of 
Huntly, who knows wh.at’s what. 
