Another hint to the young angler is to mind what he is about when he approaches the still deeps of the river. Many are apt to pass them by altogether, and scarcely try a cast until they come to the pools and streams again. Perhaps the best test of a finished performer is the manner in which he fishes these dead deep places, especially if there is little wind, for they generally harbour the largest and best-fed fish, which are, of course, the most suspicious and difficult to rise. We will suppose a first-rate angler approaching one of these unrippled deeps: his tackle is of the very lightest description-he is watching with a hawk's eye for the rising of a trout. Should he see one, he instantly moves up till within rather a distant cast of the place, taking advantage of any bush or tuft of reeds which may the better conceal him; or, if necessary, going down on his knee, ready to drop his cast, light as gossamer, right across the next circle, which the crafty fish may make by sucking down another incautious fly. If the trout should rise, he is not unlikely to be one well worth hooking, and to give good sport in such quiet water. When there is breeze enough to make much ripple, it may prevent any but a quick and practised eye from seeing the rises most worth notice; in which case the water should be fished with as long a line and as light casts as possible. You need not despair should trees or any other obstacle prevent your sweep from being so free as otherwise it ought, for if you are suitably dressed,* and make no rapid motions, you will

* The slate-blue of the heron's back is the best colour for a fisher's dress.

be so masked by the trees or bushes as to allow of a much nearer approach and shorter cast. In the Water of Leith there are two pools a little way above the bridge, overshadowed by old trees, and much frequented by large heavy trout. There I have been often more successful than when my sweep was perfectly unencumbered; and I must be allowed to mention a curious circumstance which happened to me some years ago in one of these said pools. Having tied a cast rather hurriedly in the morning, I hooked a good fish upon my bob, a mouse-body and snipewing, when the single knot slipped. Two days after, when fishing the same place, I again hooked and killed a fine trout, upwards of a pound weight, and, to my astonishment, my own handiwork with two inches of gut was sticking in its lip. One of the fraternity, sedulously employed on the opposite bank, remarked, that "it must have been an honest trout, for it was not for want of temptation that he kept the hook for the right owner!" He also related a fact of the same kind which had happened a week or two before. A friend of his was fishing with minnow, when the tackle caught in a tree behind, and, not being able to reach it, he had broken the gut. Soon after, when some one was shaking the tree, to secure the tackle, it dropped off into the water, and, being slightly loaded with lead, immediately sank. Next day an eel was taken at a set line with a piece of gut hanging out of its mouth, and the very person who had lost the tackle being on the spot, it occurred to him that it might be his, which proved to be

the case.

The insensibility to pain, which an angler can scarcely fail to notice in these cold-blooded creatures, is a point which happily redeems from cruelty the necessary inflictions of his craft. I recollect catching three fine trout one evening when trolling on Loch Lomond with a friend, and we discovered hanging out of the mouth of one of them a strong hair line. On opening the fish, we found a large bait-book fixed firmly in its stomach, the wicker and part of the hook being nearly digested. The creature had evidently been caught and broke away from a set-line, and, though hooked in so vital a part, not only took our bait greedily, and made a most capital fight for a quarter of an hour, but was in the very finest condition, having fattened on his hard fare, instead of wasting from torture.

The last hint I have to give on the still parts of the river is, that when the large trout refuse to rise, being sated with summer-flies, a small minnow about dusk is most likely to succeed.

With regard to the streams, and more rapid parts of the river, it certainly requires practice to find out the feedingplaces of trout. There is always a good cast just where the water begins to steady itself, after falling and foaming over a ledge of rock,-also in the eddies caused by roots, stones, branches of trees, &c. An angler who loves his craft will very soon become knowing in this department, and will then find much less difficulty here than in the still deeps. Of course, the more rapid the water the less likely is the trout to observe either a fisher on the banks or his line, though peance beavily throw + show me the

man who can fish the still parts of the river with tact and science, and I will be answerable for the rest of his performance. As to wind, which most anglers make such a fuss about, although a moderate breeze is a sine quá non in loch-fishing, and also an advantage to the clumsy craftsman on the river, yet if the water is in its best state, and the sun not very bright, a first-rate angler would rather have too little than too much.

The above observations apply equally to all the rivers and streams I have fished; and my practice has been in many parts of England, as well as in the north, south, east, and west of Scotland.

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING ON THE HIGHLAND

LOCHS

THE exciting nature of the winter shooting on one of our large Highland lochs, if well frequented by water-fowl, can hardly be conceived by a stranger to the sport. It, in fact, partakes so completely of the nature of deer-stalking, that a man who is an adept at the one would be sure, with a little practice, to be equally so at the other. I should have been astonished to find this amusement so little followed by gentlemen, had I not sometimes witnessed the bungling manner in which they set about it: it is, indeed, as rare to find a gentleman who knows anything of this sport as a rustic who has not a pretty good smattering of it. The reason is obvious. The squire, who may be a tolerable shot, is all eager anxiety until he can show off his right and left upon the devoted fowl; while the clod, having only his rusty single barrel to depend upon, and knowing that if the birds should rise, his chance is greatly lessened, uses all the brains of which he is master in order to get the sitting shot; and knowing also, from experience, that the nearer he