110 
THE PISHING GAZETTE 
[February 18, 1893 
I 
FAIMOUS FISHERMEN, 
JAMES GRANT. 
The following particulars, sent ns by that vete¬ 
ran sportsman-born angler—the crack hand of 
the Spey—James Grant, tackle maker,Grantown, 
locally and familiarly known as “Jamie Dyer” 
or the “Young Dyer,” will, we are quite sure, be 
read with great interest by all, and more especi¬ 
ally those that have fished for saumon in Scotland 
“ in the good old times of fifty years ago.” Jamie 
is a man of mettle who, notwithstanding his years, 
is still hale and hearty, and ready as ever to go 
out to the fishing with his patrons when called 
upon. He is shrewd, intelligent, and highly 
observant, hence his great angling skill and fame. 
He lias had a fine innings of it—such as most of 
us might well envy—but like all others who 
have proved grand stayers he sorely 
laments the sadly degenerate angling , 
days upon which we have now fallen. 
“ Nearly all the old sportsmen fishers of my 
young days that came of the native stock have 
died out years ago. One of the best old Spey 
fishers was my father, William Grant, or “Dyer,” 
who had the reputation of being a crack switcher. 
He was born on Aug. 12,1784. He died about 
eighteen years ago and had reached the age of 
ninety. His greatest capture to my knowledge 
was nine salmon in one day. In those days we 
had no wood for our rods except home-grown ash, 
which has a very poor spring. The length of our 
rods were from 18ft. to 19ft., the butt filling the 
hand, and all one piece. We had large woodmi 
reels, which we made ourselves, Gin. long and 4in. 
deep ; bur hooks were dressed on hair (from six to 
twelve hairs), casts equally stout, as likewise the 
reel-lines, which were made by the herd boys and 
sold by them at lid. per yard. AVe were all 
switchers. I can throw ten yards more with a 
.\othing, notwithstanding, can even 
they are come upon by the netters and all cleaned 
out. AYhat I say is this, that in order to keep up 
the stock of breeders, and also give good sport to 
gentlemen, the Duke’s nets should not, from the 
commencement of the close time on Saturday 
night, be on again until Wednesday morning. 
“ In this district I have been favoured with days’ 
fishing now and again on private waters, and 
have taken as many as seven fish at one outing. 
The fish are getting scarcer and scarcer. I now 
frequently fish over the same water and not 
“ start ” one. The terrible netting of the Duke 
is Simply ruining the Spey. To what a sad pass 
have matters piscatorial come. Once on a time 
there were fish in spring—ay, plenty of them—to 
make us forget all considerations of discomfort 
in our enthusiasm for the sport. Along with 
others, I remember having often fished barefoot, 
when the weather was so frosty early in the 
spring that we could not stand on the 
top of the stones for ice. Old as I am, 
I can still fish about as well as ever 1 
did, make a rod, and dress a fly.” 
yet “ baud him away ” from the fisli- 
ing, of which he is passio7iately fond. 
Jamie, it may be mentioned, has been 
a widower once—twice if our infor¬ 
mation is correct—but from still 
feeling gay and youthful he elected 
some years since to again enter the 
married state, and now he pats on 
the head a bonnie wee bairn, and tells 
the stranger with all a father’s pride, 
“ This is my latest.” Many more 
days and much felicity to you yet, 
Jamie, say we all. 
“ 1 have pleasure in complying with 
3 ’our request to furnish particulars 
of some of my salmon and trout-fish¬ 
ing exploits on the Spey. 
I was born on April 27, 1812, and 
am, therefore, now nearly eighty-one 
years old. When a lad of only ten 
I began to fish for trout, which were 
then very plentiful, and readily took 
a small red fly tied on three white 
horsehairs. The reel lines were also 
of hair, and in those olden times and 
for long after we never saw gut or 
fishing trousers. My largest takes 
of trout have been from ten to fifteen 
dozen in one day, most of them weigh¬ 
ing from Rb. to 41b. Nowadays tbe 
trout are verj’ few and small. My 
first salmon was taken in 1829, when 1 
was only seventeen years old, though 
before that time I had landed a good 
number of grilse and sea-trout, which 
were then very numerous, and of 
which together I once took nine in a 
day. I have “started” as many as 
twenty-five salmon in one day, bring¬ 
ing twelve of them to bank, but now 
1 cannot get the same number in a 
whole season. I have hooked eleven 
salmon in a day, and out of that 
number taken ten, which I think is 
the record big take that does me 
most credit. AVith a two-piece 18ft. 
Spey rod, greenheart butt and lance- 
wood top, of my own make, I am still 
able to cast about forty jmrds. I like 
fly-fishing best, and 1 also prefer 
switching to any other style of put¬ 
ting out a line, as I can do it so well 
among biishes. I can cast a long 
line overhead, yet by switching I 
can cast farther. IVly favourite Spey flies are 
Orange Bodies, Yellow, Purple, and Black Kings, 
the Lady Caroline, and the Earl of March. I 
have invented two flies myself—Fancy and 
Common Grant—which ai-e very deadly and do for 
any season. I take fish with Spey flies when they 
will not look at the fancy ones. Frequently, 
however, 1 have “ started ” fish with fancy flies 
when they would not come up to the Spey 
patterns, and as frequently I have taken them 
with the Spej' patterns after they had “ started ” 
to the fancy flies but failed to snap them. I 
prefer the above-named lot of flies to all the 
fancy flies I have ever fished with. I have run a 
fish 400 yards, and, as far as 1 can remember, the 
longest time 1 ever took to land one was two 
hours. I do not recollect of ever having killed a 
salmon of above JOlb. " i 
JAMES GRANT. 
Spey rod of 10ft. of my own make, greenheart 
butt and lancewood top, two pieces, spliced or 
ferruled, than I did with the old Spey rods of the 
same dimensions, which were about twice the 
weight. If we had had the tackle then which we 
have now, I don’t know what we should have 
done. Then there were ten fish of all sorts for 
every one we have now, and in those days anglers 
numbered not one-tenth of their present strength. 
“ The fish have now grown very shy. I believe a 
reason for this is, that very many of them get 
pricked ere thej' reach our very inland part of the 
river, and also the netting is much to blame, the 
river being very much over-netted at the mouth. 
AV'e have a thirty-six hours free pass on the Spey, 
from Saturday night to Afonday morning, which 
is really a perfect sham. Before the fish reach 
the Duke’s upper nets on the Monday morning. 
ilD 7^ 
GaAYLiNf; IN THE Itchen. —There 
often arises a discussion as to whether 
grayling work up or down a river, and 
as facts on such a subject are worth 
more than theory, it may be worth 
while mentioning what the grayling in 
the Itchen have done in this respect. 
Grayling in the southern rivers are 
somewhat different to their relatives 
in the north. The southern grayling 
run larger and do not pervade the 
whole river, but are found only in 
specific localities. Grayling, as I have 
been told by gentlemen who know, 
were first placed in the Itchen by Sir 
Frederick Bathurst, ivho was then 
living near Salisbury, and he brought 
them up from thence and placed them 
in the water at Brambridge, then 
owned by his father-in-law, and lately' 
by Sir Thos. Fairbairn. This was 
somewhere about 1820. Brambridge is 
about half-way between Twyford and 
Bishopstoke, being about three miles 
distant (by water) from both. Now, 
and as long as I can remember—nearl 3 ' 
half a century—the grayling are to be 
found all the way from the hatch in 
the old river just above Twyford 
Church down to above half a mile or so 
below the road crossing the meadows 
at Bishopstoke; that is to say, they are 
to be found in a space of six or seven 
miles of the water, Brambridge, where 
they were originally put in, being abou t 
the centre of it. So far as I can judge 
there was no reason why they should 
not have gone up to Alresford at the 
top, or down to the sea at Stoneham, 
had they been so inclined, but they did 
not. Moreover, it should be noticed 
that, although not gregarious, the 3 ' 
are as it were assembled together in 
spots, and anyone knowing the water 
can find them, although a stray one or 
two may be found all about the water 
indicated. Again, although the gray¬ 
ling went up the old river to Twyford 
Church, as above mentioned, they did 
not go so far up the canal, as I never 
heard of one above the fourth lock on 
the canal, which is about two miles 
below Twyford Church. At the pre¬ 
sent time they could not get up the canal, as the lock 
is built up—as several of the locks are—but years 
ago it and the others were all equally open. Oray- 
ling prefersome streams to others, and I fancy they 
like to have reasonable access to shallows andquick 
water. Certainly there are some sluggish streams 
coming into this water where there are no shallows, 
and you do not find grayling in them. The largest 
owner on this water has of late years set his face 
against grayling, in the belief that they are antago- 
nisticto trout, andare not so well worth preserving, 
in both of which ideas I have the misfortune to 
differ from him. I know that in former years 1 
used to catch lots of gra 3 'ling and trout in the 
same water, and the 3 ' seemed to me both to be 
more plentiful then than they now are; and as 
for sport, commend mo to a good Itchen grayling 
of about 1 Jib. or 21b.—Civis, in The Field. 
