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Zulu, which I sucked for a moment to make sure

that it would sink. I cast, and the cast, and the fly was taken as soon as it sank, and I had tightened the line. I struck hard, and brought up, fighting and splashing, a trout larger than I had expected. He seemed a monster, and proved, eventually, under half a pound. I dragged him down stream, he fighting desperately, and I reeling in as fast as I could. The moment he ceased these struggles I grasped the gut, which luckily was strong, and lifted him on to the bank. It was the best moment of the day.

Each pool in succession produced its trout, and sometimes more than one. If one fish had been neatly and quickly jerked out from the lower end of the pool, there was often another against the rushes at the top who was ready to take the fly when it was presented to him. Sometimes, as unfortunately so often happens, the best fish were the most lightly hooked, and dropped back with an odious flop. I fished with as short and tight a line as possible, struck hard, and with the same motion of the rod swung the little fish on to the grass before he had enough recovered from his

shock to struggle. Although the fish were small, the pleasure of catching each one under such conditions was peculiar. Some of the stream was so thickly overgrown along the edge with flags and reeds that one could approach, by stooping, within a foot or two. Then the rod was advanced over the edge, the wind carried out a little line, and the fly hovered over the water before it settled. This method of fishing I found succeeded where it was impossible to cast in the proper sense. The biggest fish in the burn, I noticed, took the fly, as a rule, when it touched the water. So quickly did they rise at it, and so hard did they pull, before one lifted them out, that I never could get over the surprise they gave. The smaller fish came at the fly when it had sunk a little, and was being drawn back. The more vigorously the fly was worked in jerks across the water, the smaller were the fish that rose, and the more persistently did they dash at it and hook themselves. I had now reached the limit of fishable water; and the little burn had become a narrow, black ditch, full of water weeds, with the peat water oozing between them. But for the weeds,

A BURN IN THE SANDHILLS

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which made fly-fishing quite impossible, I doubt not, it would have produced some excellent trout. If there was any depth and a square foot of clear water among the floating leaves of the plants, it was worth dropping the fly upon it.

I sat down to count over the fish, and found them one short of the two dozen. I had thrown back about half as many others, too small to kill. It was now well on into the afternoon; so after eating my luncheon, I walked down to the lowest pools on the shore, and fished the whole burn over again. The clear pools on the sands produced nothing. A little higher up three good fish fell back in succession, which is trying to the temper. But six more little trout were got, and the whole bag from the day's fishing was twentynine. None of these, I venture to think, were too small to kill, but I must admit that none were monsters. The pleasures of the day's fishing were great. There was the first surprise, when the dark-brown stream meandering among the sand-hills produced such unexpected trout. There was the varied excitement as one approached the different pools, and wondered what each might

hold. Lastly, there was the unusual pleasure of catching trout on the seashore, with the smell of seaweed and the salt of the sea-breeze in the air. It is certainly a much greater amusement to fill one's creel with troutlets from a burn than from a loch.

LOCH-FISHING stands by itself.

form of fly-fishing for trout.

It is the easiest

As far as skill

goes, very little practice is required to fish from a boat, casting the flies on the open water of a lake, with the wind behind one. But loch-fishing presents more unsolved problems than any other variety of angling, salmon-fishing always excepted. Why trout sometimes rise freely to the artificial loch-fly, and sometimes ignore it, no man knows. We all know that as a general rule a mild day is better than a cold one, a cloudy sky better than a bright one, a breeze better than a calm. We may speculate as to the reasons, but no one can lay down the law with certainty. More mysterious still are the causes which on the same day make loch-trout suddenly rise or cease rising at the artificial flies. The conditions remain apparently the same. Yet a great number of fish are simultaneously affected by the same cause.