March 18, 1893] 
CONTENTS. 
THE PISHING GAZETTE 
183 
N.B.—All rights reserved in articles published in this 
paper. 
The Spring Salmon Rivers of Scotland .183 
Scotch Notes .184 
Mullet Fishing and other Sport on the Blackwater 
River .185 
The Book of the Roach .186 
Notes and Queries .187 
Fisheries Exhibition at the Royal Aquarium.187 
Thames Fishery Bye-laws.187 
A Day on a North-West Yorkshire Stream . 187 
How to Breed and Rear Trout.188 
An Ideal Dictionary of Fly-Dressing .189 
Stray Casts from Athlono.189 
Friends of My Youth.190 
Waltoniana.190 
Correspondence. 191 
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SATURDAY, MARCH 18th, 1893. 
THE SPRING SALMON RIVERS OF 
SCOTLAND. 
AS THEY ARE. 
{Gontmued from 'page 171.) 
By W. Murdoch. 
No mistake about tbe Helmsdale. It is a 
“ topper ” of a spring salmon angling river; and 
why ? Simply because it is well used, and has 
been so for years. It is now one of the very 
earliest salmon streams in the whole of Scotland. 
Naturally neither it nor any of the other far 
north streams can rank with Tay, Dee, Don, or 
North Esk, in point of earliness; but after a 
mild winter preceding the opening of the rod 
fishing, there is certain to be found a good head 
of fish forward when anglers make their advent. 
The run in those far north rivers no doubt com¬ 
mences very nearly as soon as in the more 
southern rivers mentioned, but it is not of 
nearly such strength, comparatively, as in them, 
notwithstanding there may be equally favourable 
conditions to bring fish forward. Those larger 
rivers of the eastern seaboard always have, under 
favourable circumstances, vast numbers of fish 
ascending them sometime during the last half of 
December, and always during the month of 
January. In them the first run differs from that 
which takes place in the Helmsdale and other 
far north streams, in respect that it is the 
first great run of the year—that run which, in 
strength, continues during the winter and 
throughout most of spring. The run which 
earliest takes place in Helmsdale, Naver, and 
Thurso, is that of winter fish; a very small run 
of large, rather coarse, fisli, which, having favour¬ 
able conditions to entice them in from the sea, 
ascend in the dead of winter, or usually before 
any of the true spring fish (which are little more 
than half the weight) begin to run inland. In 
Helmsdale and. Naver this year there has most 
likely been under the average head of winter 
fish forward. Of course, this may not be so; 
still it looks extremely likely if an inference is 
to be drawn from the fact that extremely few have 
been caught by the rods. Par more of them 
have been got on the Thurso, and there, pro¬ 
bably, the run has been more nearly of its 
normal strength. 
No netting is allowed in, or in connection with, 
the Helmsdale until the month of May. The 
angling commences on January 11, and usually 
for a few weeks winter fish are most in evidence 
in the takes by the rods. It requires very fine 
weather indeed, with abundance of water in the 
river, to draw many spring fish up in the month 
of January; but by the middle of February the 
angling some years is found to have become 
wonderfully good. Between that time and the 
middle of April the sport most frequently is 
steadiest and best. There is not a great length 
of angling water for early fishing—only some 
nine or ten miles—in consequence of falls at 
Kildonan holding back the fish from the waters 
above until the month of April. These falls— 
and especially one fall—if they may be so called, 
act as effectual obstruction to ascent, no matter 
what volume the river is in, until such time as 
the temperature of the water reaches a certain 
height, when the fish, which have lain below 
probably for months, and most of which usually 
have got a good deal browned, begin to hittle up 
and go bounding over like greyhounds. 
The river is divided into angling beats, which 
the tenants of the adjacent shootings have 
rented, and fish in rotation by the day until the 
spring angling season ends, when the angling 
gets more scattered through fish going forward 
to the upper waters. From that time onward 
the various tenants fish the stretches contiguous 
to their own shootings. It is really remakable 
the success that has attended the careful nursing 
and wise management of the Helmsdale. Like 
all other rivers, it has its ups and downs in 
angling, and even since the netting was aban¬ 
doned until the month of May, there have been 
spring angling seasons during which sport did 
not come up to expectation. Still, taking the 
average of the seasons all through, the sport 
obtained on this little Highland river has been 
really grand. Only a few years ago, when there 
was a great plenty of salmon, there were caught 
during the best of the season, on repeated 
occasions, as many as fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, 
and seventeen fish by one rod in a day. And in 
this success different rods shared. This I should 
think was something to please thoroughly, if not 
indeed to be very proud of. 
The Helmsdale is extremely dependent for its 
volume on rain, and snow accumulations on the 
uplands and mountains of its basin. It is almost 
entirely surface fed, but has a large number of 
lochs, some of considerable extent, connected 
with it to assist in maintaining its regular supply 
of water. Abundance of rain sufficient to fill the 
lochs to high level will keep up the volume to an 
extent ample in all respects for angling for a 
long time. The same also will great accumula¬ 
tions of snow on the mountains, gradually 
melting and running down a supply of water to 
the lochs, secure. Long tracts of severe frost, 
after a period of drought, would seem to have 
the most prejudicial effect of all, for then the 
lochs get extremely low, and from having no 
springs to sustain them get frost bound, and 
hence run so little water down into the river as 
to make angling about wholly useless. Still, 
notwithstanding the drawbacks it suffers from, 
the Helmsdale must be ranked as naturally a 
wonderfully good angling stream, extremely pro¬ 
ductive of sport in years when fish are numerous 
and climatic conditions for angling favourable. 
and no year at all amiss as sport now-a-days in 
Scottish rivers in spring goes. Its natural 
resources for spawning are remarkable, and since 
the time—thanks to the enterprise of His Grace 
the Duke of Sutherland—they were given a fair 
chance, the head of fish has increased to an 
extraordinary extent, as attested by the infinitely 
better angling, and the far greater takes of fish 
to the nets of the district during the very much 
shorter season. For many years the latter have 
only fished from May onward, whereas before 
they worked uninterruptedly, except during the 
weekly slap, from Feb. 11 to the close of the 
statutory period. Then they caught most of the 
spring fish, the laggards of the winter fish, the 
summer salmon, the sea-trout, and the grilse. 
Since the “reserve” for angling was commenced 
the fishing of the nets has been made up chiefly 
of grilse, sea-trout, and the not large head of 
summer salmon. Yet the whole take annually 
has been greater on an average than it was when 
there was three months longer of a netting 
season. This should prove incontestibly to those 
salmon fishery proprietors who have doubts 
about the financial success of a generous policy 
that their doubts are ill founded, and that ex¬ 
periment here as elsewhere has been to effectually 
knock them on the head. Not only has the policy 
which the Duke of Sutherland has pursued with 
regard to the Helmsdale proved paying to him in 
respect of the Helmsdale itself, but be has by 
reason of it been able to enhance materially the 
reputation and value of other streams on his 
estate. Without doing the Helmsdale the least 
harm, quantities of ova from its salmon have 
been taken to be hatched out in hatcheries, 
whence the young, in due time, have been trans¬ 
ferred to other rivers on the estate, as also to the 
Helmsdale itself, to benefit, as unquestionably has 
been the case, both the angling and the netting 
of the respective rivers. 
The Thurso—once so famous for its spring 
angling—is the most easterly salmon river of the 
north coast of Scotland. This river, in its 
palmiest days, had no peer in the British Isles 
for early-season sport. But it is much to be re¬ 
gretted that a time came when its reputation, pre¬ 
viously gradually diminishing, had fallen greatly 
away, and when “ Ichabod ” might with absolute 
truth have been written on warning boards all along 
its course. The bane of the north coast salmon 
fisheries has been the netting in the estuaries, 
and all round the coast. From the Thurso, and 
one or two more rivers, the salmon go eastward 
to feed, then down the east coast banks, and when 
returning to their native rivers fall a prey to the 
vast array of bag-nets ranged all along from 
point to point, in bays and in all advantageous 
positions along the whole range of coast. After 
Mr. Dunbar’s highly successful run of manage¬ 
ment—during which the angling reached its 
best—had expired, the fishing gradually became 
poorer to the rods, till at last the Thurso 
was lagging far behind several of its northern 
compeers, and scarcely then did it receive 
any personal attention or recommendation from 
experienced anglers. Mr. Dunbar in many ways 
did much for the fishery ; but it proved only too 
patent that with their giving up the hatching, 
and netting being fiercely carried on, his suc¬ 
cessors in the lease from Sir Tollemache sought 
to make a very fine thing of it all round, fast as 
possible. But this proved impracticable; the 
netting being too fiercely pursued, and nothing 
done to re-stock the river, it was but natural that 
the angling should fall off, and it did so as 
indicated until a few years ago, when a party of 
gentlemen took up the whole fishery on lease, 
and by arrangement secured a restriction of the 
netting and the establishment of a hatchery on a 
large scale to replenish, in conjunction with the 
natural resources, the stock of salmonidce in the 
river. There is now great hope for the Thurso, 
which naturally is very early, and concerning 
the early fish of which the remarks I have 
made in the case of the Helmsdale pretty nearly 
apply. 
Mr. Archibald Harper, one of the fishermen, 
has, by careful experiment and observation ex¬ 
tending over a long series of years, done much 
to make clear in what way or ways the Thurso 
could be benefited, and how its salmon are 
affected by temperature in ascending and 
descending the river, as also in taking the lures 
presented to them by anglers. 
