|
Highland
Lakes—Steam-boats—Small Lochs—Wild Cats—Ravens—Dragging the Lake—The Crea—Fishing
at Night—Pike—Trolling large Trout on Loch Ness—Flies, Otters,
etc.—Fishing with the Otter—Spawning Trout.
THE beauties of Loch Lomond,
Loch Awe, and several other of the Highland lakes, are almost as well
known to the English as Regent Street or Hyde Park. Lovely and magnificent
as all these visited lakes are, and worthy of the praise of the poet and
the pencil of the painter, there are unnumbered other Highland lochs whose
less hackneyed beauties have far greater charms for me. Visit Loch Lomond,
or many others, and you find yourself surrounded by spruce cockneys, in
tight-waisted shooting-jackets, plaid waistcoats, and (so-called)
Glengarry bonnets, all of whom fancy themselves facsimiles of Roderick Dhu,
or James FitzJames; and quote Sir Walter to young ladies in tartan scarfs,
redolent, nevertheless, of the land of Cockayne. Steam-boats and coaches
are admirable things, but they spoil one's train of ideas, and terminate
one's reverie when enjoying the grandeur and sublimity of one of these
spots of beauty. Though a steamboat, at a certain number of miles'
distance, with its stream of smoke winding over the rocky shore of a large
lake, and adding a new feature to the scene, may occasionally come in with
good effect ;—when it approaches and comes spluttering and groaning near
you, with its smoke drifting right into your face, and driving you from
some favourite point or bay, you are apt to turn your back on lake, boat,
and scenery, with a feeling of annoyance and disgust.
I well remember being one
bright summer's day on the shore of Loch Ness, and enjoying the surpassing
loveliness of the scene. The perfectly calm loch was like a mirror,
reflecting the steep red crags of the opposite shore; and the
weeping-birch trees, feathering down to the very edge of the water, and
hanging over its surface, as if to gaze at their own fair forms in its
glassy depths, were as distinctly seen in the lake as on the shore ; while
here and there a trout rising at a fly dimpled the smooth water, and in my
idle mood I watched the circles as they gradually widened and disappeared.
The white gulls floated noiselessly by, as if afraid to disturb the
stillness of the scene, instead of saluting their common enemy with loud
cries. I had been for some time stretched on the ground enjoying the quiet
beauty of the picture, till I had at last fallen into a half-sleeping,
half-waking kind of dreaminess, when I was suddenly aroused by a Glasgow
steamer passing within a hundred yards of me, full of holiday people, with
fiddles and parasols conspicuous on the deck, while a stream of black
sooty smoke showered its favours over me, and filled my mouth as I opened
it to vent my ill-temper in an anathema against steam-boats, country-dance
tunes, and cockneys.
There have come in my way,
during my rambles through the Highlands, many a fair and beauteous loch,
placed like a bright jewel in the midst of the rugged mountains, far out
of reach of steam and coach, accessible only to the walking
traveller, or at most to a highland pony, where the only living creature
to be seen is the silent otter playing its fantastic gambols in the quiet
of the evening, or the stag as he comes to drink at the water's edge or to
crop the succulent grass which grows in the shallows. There are so many
small lochs which are known but to few individuals, but which are equally
beautiful with those whose renown and larger size have made them the
resort of numberless visitors, that it is difficult to single out any one
as pre-eminent. In Inverness-shire there are many lovely lakes, and many
an hour and day have I passed in fishing on some of these. There was one
beautiful lake to which I used sometimes to take net and boat, as well as
rod. It was a piece of water about four miles long, and one or two broad ;
at one end were two sandy bays, forming regular semicircles, with their
beaches covered to a width of a few feet with small pebbles. Between these
two bays was a bold rocky promontory running into the lake, and covered
with fine old pine-trees. Along one side was a stretch of perhaps three
miles of grey precipitous rocks nearly covered with birch and hazel, which
hung over the water, casting a dark shade on it. The other end of the lake
was contracted between the rocks till it was lost to the view, while on
the remaining side was flat moorland. The whole country round and within
view of the lake was picturesque and bold. In the rocks near the water
were a colony of wild cats, whose cries during the night deterred the
shepherd from passing that way ; while on the highest part of the grey
precipice was a raven's nest, the owners of which always kept up a concert
with their voices of ill omen whenever they saw a human being near their
dominions—there they would sit on a withered branch of a tree or a pointed
rock, croaking, and playing their quaint antics for hours together. Their
nest was so protected by a shelf of rock which projected blow it, that I
never could get a rifle-ball into it, often as I have tried, though I must
have frequently half-filled it with the splinters of the rock.
In dragging this lake we
were obliged to restrict ourselves to the two sandy bays, as the rest of
the bottom was covered with old tree-roots and broken sticks, which tore
our nets, and prevented our using them.
In the quiet summer
evenings it was interesting to see my crew of five Highlanders, as,
singing a Gaelic song, they rowed the boat in a large semicircle round one
of the bays, letting out the net as they went, one end of the rope being
held by a man on the shore at the point from which they started. When they
got to the other side of the bay they landed, with the exception of one
man, who remained in the boat to right the net if it got fixed in roots or
stones. The rest hauled in the net gradually, bringing the two ends
together. As it came in, a fine trout or pike now and then would be seen
making a dart round the enclosed space within the net, or dashing at the
net itself, dragging for a moment half the corks under water. The head man
of the crew, a little peppery Highlander, invariably got into a state of
the most savage excitement, which increased as the net approached the
shore; and if any stoppage occurred from its being caught by a root or
stick, he actually danced with excitement, hallooing and swearing in
Gaelic at the net, the men, and the fish. When all went on smoothly and
well, he acted the part of fugleman with no little dignity, perched in the
bow of the boat, and keeping the men in proper place and time as they
dragged in the net. We generally caught a great number of trout and pike,
some of very large size. By the time we had killed all the fish, and
arranged them in rows to admire their beauty and size, the little captain
(as the other men called him) subsided into a good-humoured calm; and
having offered a pinch of snuff to the gamekeeper, whom he generally fixed
upon in particular to shout at, in consequence of a kind of rivalry
between them, and also in consequence of his measuring some head and
shoulders higher than himself, he made a brief apology for what he had
said, winding it up by saying, "And after all, that's no so bad, your
Honour," as he pointed to some giant trout; he then would light a pipe,
and having taken a few whiffs, deliberately shove it alight into his
waistcoat pocket, and extracting a netting-needle and string, set to work,
mending any hole that had been made in the net. This done, and a dram of
whisky having been passed round, the net was arranged on the stern of the
boat, and they rowed round the wooded promontory to the other creek,
keeping time to their oars with some wild Gaelic song, with a chorus in
which they all joined, and the sound of which, as it came over the water
of the lake, and died gradually away as they rounded the headland, had a
most peculiarly romantic effect.
Sometimes we did not
commence our fishing till sunset, choosing nights when the full moon gave
us sufficient light for the purpose. Our object in selecting this time was
to catch the larger pike, who during the day remained in the deep water,
coming in at night to the shore, and to the mouths of the burns which run
into the lake, where they found small trout and other food brought down by
the streams. During the night time, also, towards the beginning of autumn,
we used to catch quantities of char, which fish then, and then only,
approached near enough to the shore to be caught in the nets. In the clear
frosty air of a September night the peculiar moaning cry of the wild cats
as they answered to each other along the opposite shore, and the hootings
of the owls in the pine-wood, sounded like the voices of unearthly beings,
and I do not think that any one of my crew would have passed an hour alone
by that loch side for all the fish in it. Indeed, the hill-side which
sloped down to the lake had the name of being haunted, and the waters of
the lake itself had their ghostly inhabitant in the shape of what the
Highlanders called the water-bull. There was also a story of some strange
mermaid-like monster being sometimes seen, having the appearance of a
monstrous fish with long hair. It was a scene worthy of a painter, as the
men with eager gestures scrambled up, the fish glancing like silver in the
moonbeams; and then, as they rowed round, sometimes lost in the shade of
the pine-trees, which, completely darkened the surface of the water
immediately below the rocks on-which they grew, or came again into full
view as they left the shadow of the woods, the water sparkling and
glancing from their oars. Frequently they stopped their wild chant, as the
strange cries of the different nocturnal animals echoed loudly from the
rocks, and we could hear the men say a few words of Gaelic to each other
in a low voice, and then recommence their song.
We always caught the
largest fish at night-time, both trout and pike, the latter frequently
above twenty pounds' weight, with the teeth and jaws of a young shark.
Sometimes the net brought in a great number of char, which appear to go in
large shoals ; but these latter only in the autumn.
In these lochs I killed
great numbers of pike and the larger trout by means of floating lines,
which we put in at the windward side of the lake, to be carried down by
the wind. On favourable days, in March or October, when there was a brisk
wind, the lines went but half way across the loch before every hook had a
fish on it, and then commenced a rare chase. When we neared a float with a
large pike hooked to it, as the water was very clear, the fish took the
alarm and swam off at a great pace, often giving us some trouble before we
could catch him. I have seen an empty corked-up bottle, with line
attached, used as a float for this kind of fishing, instead of the corks.
Pike are very capricious in taking the bait, and some days not one would
move, although the wind and weather all seemed favourable ; while on other
days every float had a fish to it. Again, the fish would be quiet for some
time, and then suddenly a simultaneous impulse seemed to seize them, and
they would seize the baits as quickly as we could wish, for the space of
an hour or so.
The trout seldom take a
dead bait during the daytime, but we often caught them on hooks left in
the water all night. In all the Highland lakes on which I have fished in
this way, large eels would sometimes take the hook, and often break my
lines. It is frequently said that putting pike into a lake would destroy
the trout-fishing ; but I have invariably found that in all lakes of a
considerable size, where the pike were plenty, the trout have improved
very much in size and quality, and not diminished even in numbers to any
great extent. In fact, the thing to be complained of in most Highland
lakes is, that the trout are too numerous, and consequently of a small
size and inferior quality.
The only way to kill the
larger trout is by trolling. In Loch Awe and several other lakes I have
seen this kind of fishing succeed well. If the sportsman is skilful, he is
sure of taking finer trout in this way than he would ever do when
fly-fishing. In trolling there are two or three rules which should be
carefully observed :—Choose the roughest wind that your boat can live in ;
fish with a good-sized bait, not much less than a herring, and do not
commence your trolling until after two o'clock in the afternoon, by which
time the large fish seem to have digested their last night's supper and to
be again on the move. You may pass over the heads of hundreds of large
trout when they are lying at rest and not hungry, and you will not catch
one ; but as soon as they begin to feed, a fish, although he may have
half-a-dozen small trout in his stomach, will still run at your bait. The
weight of sinkers on your line, and the depth at which you fish, must of
course depend on the depth of water in the lake. A patient fisherman
should find out how deep every reach and bay of the lake is before he
begins to troll. The labour of a day spent in taking soundings is well
repaid. The strength and activity of the large loch trout is immense, and
he will run out your whole reel-line if allowed to do so. Sometimes he
will go down perpendicularly to the bottom, where he remains sulky or
attempts to rub off the hooks : get him out of this situation, and away he
goes, almost towing your boat after him. Then is the time for your'
boatman to make play to keep up with the fish and save your line; for a
twenty-pound Salmo ferox is no ignoble foe to contend with when you have
him at the end of a common fishing-line : he appears to have the strength
of a whale as he rushes away.
I was crossing Loch Ness alone one evening with my rod at the stern of the
boat, with my trolling-tackle on it trailing behind.
Suddenly it was seized by a
large trout, and before I could do anything but take hold of my rod he had
run out eighty yards of line, and bent my stiff trolling-rod like a
willow, carrying half the rod under water. The loch was too deep for me,
and he snapped the line in an instant, the rod and the twenty yards of
line which remained jerking back into the air, and sending the water in a
shower of spray around. Comparing the strength of this fish with that of
others which I have killed when trolling, he must have been a perfect
water-monster. Indeed I have little doubt that the immense depths of Loch
Ness contain trout as large, if not larger, than are to be found in any
other loch in Scotland.
For fly-fishing in lakes,
it is difficult to give any rule as to the colour and size of your fly.
The best thing you can do is to find out some person whose experience you
can depend on, and who has been in the habit of fishing in the particular
water where you want to try your own skill, for most lakes have a
favourite fly. I have always, when at a loss, had recourse to a red,
white, or black palmer. There are very few trout who can withstand these
flies when well made. The size of the palmer should depend on the
roughness or smoothness of the water. On a dark windy day I have
frequently found a white palmer succeed when nothing else would tempt the
fish to rise; while on a bright calm day a small black palmer should be
tried. There are endless favourite loch-flies, and it is seldom that a
person cannot be found to give you the requisite information as to which
to use : however, I never feel much at a loss as long as I have some
palmers in my fly-book.
In putting night-lines into
a large lake, the best places are those where any burn or ditch runs into
it, or along some shallow sandy or gravelly bay, for in these places the
fish feed during the night-time. Worms, frogs, and small trout are the
best bait for night-lines. In trolling, the small silvery fish supposed to
be the young of the salmon, or the small kind of herring called garvies,
are the best bait. Preserved in spirits of wine, they keep for a long
time, and become so tough, that they do not tear or break off your hook. If you take a fancy to
fish with a fly during the night in a lake, a large black fly is the
best, but unless it is drawn very slowly through the water, the fish,
though they rise, will miss it.
A small fly
which I have found to be always a favourite with trout, is one made as
follows :—Body yellow floss silk, with land-rail wing, and a turn or two
of red heckle near the head. In most waters this fly succeeds. In some
of the small black-looking lakes, far up in the solitudes of the
mountains, where no person is ever seen, unless a shepherd may chance
now and then to stray in their direction, or the deer-stalker stops to
examine the soft ground near the water edge for the tracks of deer—in
these lonely pools the trout seem often as unconscious of danger as
birds are said to be on a newly-discovered island ; and they will rise
greedily at the rudest imitation of a fly fastened to a common piece of
twine, five or six trout rising at once, and striving who should be
caught first. The fish in some of these lakes which are situated at a
great height are excessively numerous, but generally black and small. I
have seen little black pools of this kind actually crowded with small
trout.
The otter takes to the waters far up in
the hills during the summer time, where she may rear her young in the
midst of abundance and in solitary security. Making her lair on some
small island or point of land covered with coarse grass or rushes, she
lives in plenty and peace, till her young having grown strong, and the
frost of winter having commenced, the family remove, like their betters,
to the sea-side, passing over hill and valley in a straight line, to
some remembered rocks and caves, where the dam has wintered before.
Round the small hill-lake, too, are seen
the tracks of the fox and wild cat. Their nightly maraudings seem to
lead them always in the direction of water. During the heats of August,
when at a loss for grouse, I have always found it a good plan to hunt
round any lake that may be at hand—as the old birds lead their young
daily to the water's edge to drink, and to pick up the
small angular stones, numbers of which are
invariably found in the stomach of the grouse, being probably necessary to
grind down their dry and hard food. The hen-harrier and falcon too, seem
to hunt in these places, knowing that if grouse fail them, they are sure
to find either a duck or snipe, or perhaps a large flock of plovers
huddled together on the pebbles which edge the water. In fact, the
mountain lake seems to be always a kind of rendezvous for all wild
animals ; and I doubt if any grouse-shooter or deer-stalker ever passes
near their clear waters without going out of his way to look along the
margin, or to refresh himself by gazing over the cool surface.
When you are shooting, too, there is the
inducement of hoping to find a brood of ducks or teal, which few
hill-lakes are without. I have sometimes found great numbers of these
birds, collected in some quiet pool on the hills, in August or September,
before they have descended to feed on the corn in the low country.
Many a Highland lake has a legend attached to
it, and however improbable the tale may seem to the incredulous
Sassenach, the Highlander believes firmly in the truth of it.
Some
person, endowed doubtless with a prominent organ of destructiveness, has
within the last few years invented an implement for fishing the lakes,
called the otter; and though it is rather a poaching sort of affair, still
I consider it quite a fair way of catching trout in some of the mountain
lochs, where a rod could be used to no good effect, and where it would be
impossible to launch a boat. Its principle of motion is exactly similar
to that of a boy's kite. Acted upon by the resistance of the water, the
otter, which consists of a small thin board, about fourteen inches by
eight, and leaded on one edge so as to swim nearly upright, carries out a
long line, which is attached to it by four short strings and is wound on a
large reel. To this line are fastened a dozen flies on short lines, which,
being carried along by the board, rake the surface of the water; and in
windy weather I have caught numbers of trout in this way, where the rod
would have been of no use whatever.
Many a grilse, and salmon too, have I killed in Loch
Ness with the otter. There are, however, some great drawbacks to the
merits of this implement. The fish are very apt to escape after being
struck by the hooks, and, being thus wounded and frightened, become shy,
and unwilling to rise again. Also, if a large fish is hooked very near the
board, there is a great risk that he will break your fly off, and go away
with it sticking in his mouth. For these reasons, the otter, though of
great use in certain localities, should never be used in waters where the
rod can be brought into play. Though exciting enough in an unknown and
remote lake, where you seldom fish, the actual sport which it affords
falls far short of rod fishing.
I have tried it for pike, but did not find it answer,
as the fish were constantly struck without being hooked—in consequence of
their requiring some time to gorge their prey. The angling in some of the
best trout lochs is completely spoiled by the introduction of these
instruments of destruction. Every shepherd's boy or idle fellow can make
one, and carry it about with him ; and in lakes where this kind of fishing
is prohibited, he has nothing to do, if he sees a keeper or watcher in the
distance, but to wrap up the whole thing in his plaid, and walk away with
it. There are but few Highland lochs in which a net can be drawn with good
effect, owing to the unevenness of the bottom, and the risk of getting
your tackle entangled and broken by roots and remains of trees, which
always abound in these waters—the remnants of forests of an age gone by.
Their great depth too is another obstacle to net fishing, excepting here
and there, where a sandy bay or tolerably smooth bottom can be found. To
these places the trout always resort in the evenings, in order to feed on
the insects and smaller fish that frequent the small stones.
In lochs containing pike, a hang-net, as it is called,
placed across deep angles of the water or along the edge of weeds, is sure
to catch them; this fish always struggling and endeavouring to press
forward as soon as he feels the net, whereas the trout in these clear
waters always escape the danger by turning back as soon as they touch the
meshes.
The Highland shepherds kill numbers of the spawning
trout in the autumn, in every little stream and rill, however small, which
feeds the lake. At this time of the year the trout are seized with an
irresistible inclination for ascending any running stream that they can
find; and I have seen large trout of several pounds weight taken out of
holes in very small runs of water, to get into which they must have made
their way for considerable distances up a channel where the water could
not nearly cover them. Still, as long as a trout can keep his head against
the stream, so long will he endeavour to work his way up. Numbers of fish,
and always the largest, fall a prey not only to men, but to every prowling
fox or wild cat who passes their way during the autumn, and all vermin
instinctively hunt along the edge of water during the night time. A trout
in shallow water is easily caught by any of these animals. Even the
buzzard and the raven succeed in capturing them when they are left in
small rills, as is frequently the case, having been tempted to ascend them
by some shower, which swells the water for a short time and then leaves it
as low as ever.
 |
