Related article: some of them the trout run three to the pound, while in others quite eight of the lively little brownies are required to make up that weight. One small sheet of water, indeed, is supposed to contain no fish under a couple of pounds, but the scoffer of our party, a Buy Intagra friend with a hand- camera, who angles not, declares that in it are no trout whatever, and in support of his contention i897.] IN SUTHERLAND. 185 points out that no one at the inn, nor any of the gillies, can give a single instance of a fish having been caught out of it. Still the tradition lingers that it contains monsters. Then there is a certain loch within a hundred yards of the sea and connected with it by a tiny bum. To this several shoals of sea-trout ascend during a spring tide, and some of our party decide to fish it. The salmon river flows out of a considerable expanse of water a mile or so from the inn, and here lie a few large fish which ran up during the last spate. One of the anglers, who has the salmon fever strong upon him, decides to spend the day — fruitless enough, as all but he knew — in the endeavour to rise one of these stale fish. The others disperse in search of brownies and sea-trout, and the boat on the sea-loch is thus left vacant. Well satisfied with the result of the breakfast conclave, we take a stout rod from its box, and in company with stalwart, brown- bearded Angus and our old friend K., go down to the little stone pier where the boat is moored. Angus has no faith in fishing-rods when in the sea boat ; he has never seen them used before, and neither his father nor his grandfather used them, therefore they are bad. For the first time since we have been in Sutherland he prophesies evil, for as a rule, with that desire to please, common both to the Irish and the Highlanders, he will assure you that everything, whether it be loch, fly, or weather, is " guid for fesh." It is useless to show him a single fly and ask him what he thinks of it ; the answer is invari- ably the same. When K. wants to get an opinion from Angus worth having, he shows him his book, and tells him to pick out the best fly. Even then Angus sometimes evades the point by saying that they are ** all guid for fesh." But if there be a Zulu among them he vnll certainly choose that, for if Angus believes in any one fly more than another, it is the Zulu. This, it should be explained, is simply a large black hackled fly with a red top-knot. Black and red have been shown both by experience and experi- ment to be the two colours which when contrasted are the most visible to the fish in peat-stained water, and the fly has proved a very killing one in that peaty part of Scotland. To-day we require no Zulus, for we are after larger game than the brown trout. The herrings, as is customary in September, have entered the sea loch, and the lythe {Anglice, pollack) have followed them in, and are feeding right well. We have a variety of baits in our tin cases, but of artificials the two best are the red rubber sand eel, named probably by an Irish- man for the reason that it bears no resemblance whatever to a sand eel, and the red phantom minnow, which is no phantom at all, as the fish find when they have it in their mouths. Angus has some more killing baits than these — to wit, certain little black eels, four or five inches in length, which he has found under the stones in the brackish water at the mouth of the river. These, which I opine are youthful congers, he has placed for safety alive in his pocket ! For the rest, our tackle is much the same as would be used by the pike spinner in England, only it is, and has to be, very strong for reasons which will be obvious as we proceed with this relation. A soft wind from the west is blowing up the narrow gorge from the sea and slightly rippling the 1 86 BAILY S MAGAZINE. [Skptember water. As we leave the pier, K., who has prepared some very fine gut tackle, spins a tiny Devon minnow behind the boat in the hopes of attracting one of those sea -trout which we have lately seen leaping in the salt water. In this he is unsuccessful — at least, to-day, for later on we have real good sport with these lively little fish. Lower down the loch the hills slope abruptly to the water's edge, indicating a considerable depth, and we trail, one a red phantom, the other a natural eel, close to the fringe of seaweed with which the rocks are adorned. It is not often that a boat passes so far down the loch, and the sea- gulls appear to be extremely in- dignant at this invasion of their solitudes. Half a dozen of them wheel round the boat continuously shrieking, some apparently in anger, others with a sort of jeer- ing cry which is very irritating when the fish will not bite. There is, indeed, an unusually large quantity of wild fowl of all kinds in the loch just now — come hither to feed on the unfortunate herrings which, harassed from below by lythe, saithe, dog-fish, and other predatory creatures, are attacked from above by cormorants, the larger gulls, and other sea birds. We are rounding a rocky point when K. and I together call to Angus to stop, for a sudden strain has come upon our rods. ** Is he on,*' we ask one another anxiously, and reply in the affirmative ; but the Intagra 100 he is not a fish, but simply a submerged rock, the weedy top of which, coming near the surface, has attached itself to our baits. We are not fishing for rocks, so disengage our tackle at the earliest opportunity. Anglers may have observed that when the fish are feeding at all shyly they usually take advantage of any inattention on the part of the fisherman (as when he puts down his rod, lights his pipe, or unscrews his fiask) to seize the bait. K. is examining his tackle-box in search of some very killing artifi- cial which has been recommended