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Salmon-fishing — Salmon ascending Fords — Fishers — Cruives — Right of
Fishing — Anecdote — Salmon-leaps — History of the Salmon — Lampreys —
Spearing Salmon — River Poaching — Angling — Fly-making — Eels.
DURING the spring and
summer it is an amusing sight to watch the salmon making their way up the
river. Every high tide brings up a number of these fish, whose whole
object seems to be to ascend the stream. At the shallow fords, where the
river spreading over a wide surface has but a small depth of water, they
are frequently obliged to swim, or rather wade (if such an expression can
be used), for perhaps twenty yards in water of two inches in depth, which
leaves more than half the fish exposed to view. On they go, however,
scrambling up the fords, and making the water fly to the right and left,
like ducks at play. When the fish are numerous, I sometimes see a dozen or
more at once. They might be killed in these places by spears, or even a
stick, and indeed many a salmon does come to his death in this way. The
fishermen (when the river is low) save a great deal of useless fatigue,
and of injury to their nets, by working in some pool immediately above a
shallow place, where they station one of their number, who watches for the
fish ascending, giving a signal to his companions whenever he sees one.
They then immediately put out their nets, and are nearly sure to catch the
salmon. In this way very few of the fish can escape as long as the water
is low, but when a slight flood comes they can get up unperceived. It is
as easy to see them in the night-time as in the day, the water glancing
and shining as they struggle up. Indeed, on the darkest night the noise
they make is easily heard, and distinguished by the accustomed ear of the
fishermen.
There is something wild and
interesting in listening during the night to the shout of the man
stationed to watch, when he sees fish, and the sound of the oars and boat
immediately afterwards, though the object of pursuit is but a fish after
all. Sometimes a silent otter suddenly shows himself on the ford, having
slipped quietly and unobserved through the deeper parts of the stream till
he is obliged to wade, not having water enough to cover him. His
appearance is the signal of a general outcry, and if he returns to the
deep water where the net is, the fishermen occasionally manage to entangle
him, and dragging him to shore, soon dispatch him. He is one of their
worst enemies. More often, however, he slips noiselessly to the side of
the river, and half ensconced behind some broken bank, remains quiet and
concealed till the danger is past, and then glides away unperceived. There
is no animal more difficult to get the advantage of than the otter, as
long as he is on ground that he knows. The fish which escape the nets, and
those which go up during floods and on Sundays, on which day they are
allowed to have a free passage, seldom stop until they get to the deep
quiet pools amongst the rocks some four or five miles up the water, where
they rest till fresh water and opportunity enable them to continue their
upward progress. Neither sea-trout nor salmon ever seem happy excepting
when making their way up a stream. It is wonderful, too, against what
difficulties, in the shape of falls and rapids, they will ascend a river.
In the Findhorn, owing to the impetuosity of the stream, the frequent and
sudden floods it is subject to, and the immense quantity of shingle and
gravel which is always shifting its place and changing the course of the
lower part of the water, there are no cruives made use of. They would
probably be destroyed as fast as they were built. In the Spey, however,
and many other rivers, large cruives are built, which quite prevent the
ascent of the fish, excepting on Sundays and on floods. To describe a
cruive minutely would be tedious. It is, however, merely a kind of darn
built across the river, with openings here and there, allowing the water
to pass through in a strong stream, and through which the fish ascend and
get into a kind of wooden cage, out of which they cannot find their way
again, the entrance being made after the fashion of a wire mouse-trap,
affording an easier ingress than egress. Much do the anglers on the upper
part of the Spey pray for a furious flood, or speat, as it is called,
which may break down these barriers, and enable the salmon to ascend to
the higher pools before the fishermen can repair the damage done.
The right of fishing in
many of the Scotch rivers is vested in a very singular manner ; as, for
instance, in the Findhorn, where the proprietor of many miles of land
along the river banks has no right to throw a line in the water, but is
obliged to pay a rent for fishing on his own ground. Indeed, this kind of
alienation of the right of fishing from the person who would seem to be
the natural proprietor of it is very common. I remember an anecdote told
me by an old Highlander as to the cause of the fishing in a particular
river in Sutherland being out of the hands of the proprietor of the land
on its banks. The story is as follows:—
The laird of the property higher up on the water was also the possessor of
a small island in the river. He was a deep, long-headed fellow, and
grudged his neighbour the profit he made out of the fishing just below
him, the water on the upper part not being so good. He therefore commenced
building a fort on the island, and falling in with his neighbour, asked
him in an off-hand way to give him, merely, he said, for the convenience
of his workmen, a right of fishing the whole river until his building was
completed, salmon in those days being used as a means of feeding the
numerous retainers and servants who lived upon and followed every laird
and chieftain. Indeed, but a few years back it was often made a
stipulation by servants on being hired by a Highland master that they
should not be fed on salmon above a certain number of days in the week.
But to continue my story. The permission was granted ; and, to save all
dispute about the matter, even a legal written document was given over to
the wily laird, granting him exclusive right of fishing and netting the
river, "until his house was finished." The building was immediately
stopped, and the right of fishing still belongs to the proprietor of the
little islet, who will probably never finish his building, as doing so
would put an end to his valuable rights on the river. So runs the tale,
which does more credit to the acuteness than to the honesty of the
inventor of the ruse. The jumping of the salmon up a fall is a curious and
beautiful sight, and the height they leap, and the perseverance which they
show in returning again and again to the charge, after making vain efforts
to surmount the fall, are quite wonderful. Often on a summer evening, when
the river is full of fish, all eager to make their way up, have I watched
them for hours together, as they sprang in rapid succession, looking like
pieces of silver as they dashed up the falls with rapid leaps. The fish
appear to bend their head to their tail, and then to fling themselves
forward and upwards, much as a bit of whalebone whose two ends are pinched
together springs forward on being released. I have often watched them
leaping, and this has always seemed the way in which they accomplish their
extraordinary task. Both salmon and sea-trout, soon after they enter the
fresh water, from the sea, make wonderful leaps into the air, shooting
perpendicularly upwards, to the height of some feet, with a quivering
motion, which is often quite audible. This is most likely to get rid of a
kind of parasitical insect which adheres to them when they first leave the
sea. The fishermen call this creature the sea-louse : it appears to cause
a great deal of irritation to the fish. It is a sure sign that the salmon
is in good condition, and fresh from the sea, when these insects are found
adhering to him.
Though the natural history
of the salmon is daily being searched into, and curious facts connected
with it are constantly ascertained, I fancy that there is much still to be
learnt on the subject, as some of the statements advanced seem so much at
variance with my own frequent though unscientific observations, that I
cannot give in to all that is asserted. But as I have not opportunities of
proving many points, I will leave the whole subject in the abler hands of
those who have already written on it, and whose accounts, though they may
err here and there, are probably in the main correct. As long as the
salmon are in the river water they seem to lose condition, and become lean
and dark-coloured. By the time that they have ascended to within a dozen
miles or so of the source of the river they are scarcely fit to eat.
Nevertheless vast numbers are killed by poachers and shepherds in the
autumn, even after the legal season is over. I once fell in with a band of
Highlanders who were employed busily in the amusing but illegal pursuit of
spearing salmon by torchlight. And a most exciting and interesting
proceeding it was. The night was calm and dark. The steep and broken rocks
were illuminated in the most brilliant manner by fifteen or sixteen
torches, which were carried by as many active Highlanders, and glanced
merrily on the water, throwing the most fantastic light and shade on all
around as they moved about. Sometimes one of them would remain motionless
for a few moments, as its bearer waited in the expectation that some fish
which had been started by his companions would come within reach of his
spear, as he stood with it ready poised, and his eager countenance lighted
up by his torch as he bent over the water. Then would come loud shouts and
a confused hurrying to and fro, as some great fish darted amongst the men,
and loud and merry peals of laughter when some unlucky fellow darting at a
fish in too deep water, missed his balance, and fell headlong into the
pool. Every now and then a salmon would be seen hoisted into the air, and
quivering on an uplifted spear. The fish, as soon as caught, was carried
ashore, where it was knocked on the head and taken charge of by some man
older than the rest, who was deputed to this office. Thirty-seven salmon
were killed that night ; and I must say that I entered into the fun,
unmindful of its not being quite in accordance with my ideas of right and
wrong ; and I enjoyed it probably as much as any of the wild lads who were
engaged in it. There was not much English talked amongst the party, as
they found more expressive words in Gaelic to vent their eagerness and
impatience. All was good humour, however ; and though they at first looked
on me with some slight suspicion, yet when they saw that I enjoyed their
torchlight fishing, and entered fully into the spirit of it, they soon
treated me with all consideration and as one of themselves. I happened to
know one or two of the men ; and after it was over, and we were drying our
drenched clothes in a neighbouring bothy, it occurred to me to think of
the river bailiffs and watchers, several of whom I knew were employed on
that part of the stream, and I asked where they were, that they did not
interfere with the somewhat irregular proceeding in which we had all been
engaged. "'Deed ay, sir, there are no less than twelve bailies and
offishers on the water here, but they are mostly douce-like lads, and
don't interfere much with us, as we only come once or twice in the season.
Besides which, they ken well that if they did they might get a wild
ducking amongst us all, and they would na ken us again, as we all come
from beyont the braes yonder. Not that we would wish to hurt the puir
chiels," continued my informer, as he took off a glass of whisky, "as they
would be but doing their duty. They would as lave, however, I am thinking,
be taking a quiet dram at Sandy Roy's down yonder as getting a ducking in
the river ; and they are wise enough not to run the risk of it." Not bad
reasoning either,' thought I ; nor can I wonder that the poor
water-bailiffs would prefer a quiet bowl of toddy to a row with a party of
wild Badenoch poachers, who, though good-natured enough on the whole, were
determined to have their night's fun out in spite of all opposition. There
are worse poachers, too, than these said Highlanders, who only come down
now and then more for the amusement than the profit of the thing ; and
whom it is generally better policy to keep friends with than to make
enemies of.
The ponderous
lexicographer, who describes a fishing-rod as a stick with a fool at one
end and a worm at the other, displays in this saying more wit than wisdom.
Not that I quite go the whole length of my quaint and amiable old friend,
Isaac Walton, who implies in every page of his paragon of a book, that the
art of angling is the summum bonum of happiness, and that an angler must
needs be the best of men. I do believe, however, that no determined angler
can be naturally a bad or vicious man. No man who enters into the silent
communings with Nature, whose beauties he must be constantly surrounded
by, and familiar with during his ramblings as an angler, can fail to be
improved in mind and disposition during his solitary wanderings amongst
the most lovely and romantic works of the creation, in the wild Highland
glens and mountains through which the best streams take their course. I do
not include in my term angler the pond or punt fisher, however well versed
he may be in the arts of spitting worms and impaling frogs, so learnedly
discussed by Isaac—notwithstanding the kindliness and simplicitly of heart
so conspicuous in every line he writes. Angling, in my sense of the word,
implies wandering with rod and creel in the wild solitudes, and tempting
(or endeavouring to do so) the fish from their clear water, with
artificial fly or minnow. Nothing can be more unlike the "worm" described
as forming one end of the thing called a fishing-rod, than the gay and
gaudy collection of feathers and tinsel which form the attraction of a
Findhorn fly. Let us look at the salmon-fly which I have just finished,
and which now lies on the table before me, ready for trial in some clear
pool of the river. To begin : I tie with well-waxed silk a portion of
silkworms' intestines on a highly-tempered and finished Limerick-made
hook. Here are three different substances brought into play already. I
next begin at the tail of the fly : first come two turns of gold thread,
then a tenth part of an inch of red floss-silk ; next comes the tail,
consisting of a bright gold feather from the crest of the golden pheasant.
The body is now to be made of, alternately, a stripe of green, a stripe of
blue, and the remainder of orange-coloured floss-silk, with a double
binding of gold thread and silver tinsel ; the legs are made of a black
barn-door cock's hackle, taken from him, in winter, when the bird is in
full plumage ; next to the wing comes a turn of grouse's feather, and two
or three turns of the purple-black feather which is pendant on the breast
of an old cock heron. Now for the wing, which is composed of a mixture of
feathers from the mallard killed in this country ; from the teal drake,
also a native ; from the turkey-cock ; the bustard, from India ; a stripe
or two of green parrot ; a little of the tippet of the gold pheasant ; a
thread or two from the peacock's tail ; a bit from the Argus pheasant, and
from the tail of a common hen pheasant : all these mixed and blended
together form an irresistible wing. Round the shoulder of the wing a turn
of the blue and black feather off a jay's wing. For the head, a small
portion of that substance called pig's wool, so mysterious to the
uninitiated, pigs not being the usual animals from which wool is supposed
to be derived ; then finished off with a few turns of black ostrich
feather ; not forgetting that finish to the whole, two horns of red and
blue macaw's feather. Now all this makes a fly either of the dragon or
some other species, which no salmon who is in a taking mood (one can
hardly suppose he swallows it out of hunger) can resist. See the gallant
fish, as he rises suddenly up from the dark depths of the pool, poises
himself for a moment, as the fly hovers before him, in the twirling eddy,
then darts forward, seizes the gaudy bait, and retreats again, apparently
well satisfied with his skill in fly-catching, till he suddenly finds
himself pulled up, and held fast by the unexpected strength of the insect.
I suspect that a salmon, after a quarter of an hour's struggle on a line,
would scarcely call the fisherman at the other end " a fool," even if he
took the fly to be some newly-discovered glittering worm. Skill in
fly-fishing can only be acquired by practice, and no directions can make a
good angler. And even when fairly hooked, a salmon is only to be held by a
happy mixture of the suaviter in modo and fortiter in re, which keeps the
line at a gentle but firm stretch, from which he cannot escape by dint of
straightforward pulling—to which the skilful fisher must gradually yield,
to prevent too much strain on his slight line. Nor, on the other hand,
ought the fish to be allowed, by the angler slackening the line, to get a
sudden jerk at it, by means of a fresh rush, as few lines or hooks can
stand this. In fishing for sea-trout, I always kill the largest fish, and
the greatest number, by using small flies, though certainly too small
hooks are apt to lead to disappointment, by not taking sufficient hold of
this tender-skinned fish. As all rivers require different flies for
sea-trout, no general rule can be given, but I never find myself unable to
catch trout, if there are any in the water, and I use either a small
palmer, red, black, or white, and if these do not succeed, I try a small
fly with black or blue body, a turn or two of silver twist, no hackle
round the body, but a little black hackle immediately under the wings,
which latter consist of lark's or hen blackbird's feather, or that of some
other bird of a similar pale grey colour. I have often been amused by
being told gravely by some fishing-tackle maker in a country-town, when
showing him one of these simple flies, " Why, sir, that fly may do now and
then, but it is not fit for this river, and I am afraid, sir, you will
catch nothing with it "—his own stock of flies, which he wants to sell,
being all of one kind probably, and which he has managed to convince
himself and others are the only sort the fish in the neighbouring stream
will rise at. I remember one day on the Findhorn when the fish would not
rise at a fly, although they were leaping in all directions. I put on a
small white fly and filled my basket, to the astonishment of two or three
habitues of the river, who could catch nothing. Having watched me some
time, and not being able to make out why I had such good sport, they
begged to look at my fly. They scarcely believed their own eyes when I
showed them my little white moth, which the sea-trout were rising at so
greedily ; it being so unlike the flies which from habit and prejudice
they had been always accustomed to use.
I was much interested one
day in May, in watching the thou sands of small eels which were making
their way up the river. It was some distance from the mouth, and where the
stream, confined by a narrow rocky channel, ran with great strength.
Nevertheless these little eels, which were about six inches long, and as
large round as a quill, persevered in swimming against the stream. When
they came to a fall, where they could not possibly ascend, they wriggled
out of the water, and gliding along the rock close to the edge, where the
stone was constantly wet from the splashing and spray of the fall, they
made their way up till they got above the difficulty, and then again
slipping into the water, they continued their course. For several hours
there was a continued succession of these little fish going up in the same
way ; and for more than a week the same thing was to be seen every day.
The perseverance they displayed was very great, for frequently, although
washed back several times, an eel would always continue its efforts till
it managed to ascend. Towards winter they are said to descend the river
again, in equal numbers. Trout and many birds feed constantly on these
small eels, catching them with great ease in the shallows.
One summer day I was amused
by watching the singular proceedings of two lampreys in a small ditch of
clear running water near my house. They were about six inches in length,
and as large round as a pencil. The two little creatures were most busily
and anxiously employed in making little triangular heaps of stones, using
for the purpose irregularly shaped bits of gravel about the size of a
large pea. When they wished to move a larger stone, they helped each other
in endeavouring to roll it into the desired situation : occasionally they
both left off their labours and appeared to rest for a short time, and
then to return to the work with fresh vigour. The object of their building
I am not sufficiently learned in the natural history of the lamprey to
divine ; but I conclude that their work had something to do with the
placing of their spawn. I had, however, a good opportunity of watching
them, as the water was quite clear and shallow, and they were so intent
upon what they were at, that they took no notice whatever of me. I had
intended to examine the little heaps of stones which they had made, but
going from home the next day put it out of my recollection, and I lost the
opportunity. It seems, however, so singular a manoeuvre on the part of
fish to build up regular little pyramids of gravel, bringing some of the
stones from the distance of two feet against the current and rolling them
to the place with evident difficulty, that the lampreys must have some
good reason which induces them to take this trouble. It is a great pity
that the habits of fish and animals living in water are so difficult to
observe with any degree of exactness.
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