Chapter XVIII.
Angling in Fresh-water Lochs.
Besides Loch Maree there are many other fresh-water lochs within the parish of Gairloch; they are enumerated in [Part III., chap. i]. Those which are within deer forests or grouse shootings are nearly all strictly preserved, but permission to fish several good ones may be obtained by visitors staying at the different hotels. Those in private lodgings may sometimes get limited permission to fish, but except at Poolewe this cannot be easily obtained.
There are very few lochs which do not contain trout of more or less respectable quality, yet trout are not so numerous in Gairloch waters as they were formerly. Writing of trout as they were in the early part of the nineteenth century Dr Mackenzie says:—"Seventy years ago (about 1815) there were in every pool of water in our west (Gairloch) the most marvellous quantities of trout. Our lakes were, I suppose, never counted. Innumerable, like the trout, some contained good, well-fed, pink-fleshed trout, and others a mere mob of say four ounce bags of water. These filled the pools that ran to the sea from every loch in shoals, and, singular to say, sometimes as plentiful above falls, far too high for any fish to swim up, as below them. I have been told that water beetles, all of whom can fly, have been caught fresh from a feast on fish roe, with some of the roe adhering to their back; and in this way it is supposed fish have been planted in lakes from which there was no stream, or none up which they could have found their way.
"I have often filled a large fishing-basket twice over in a few hours in a hill burn not two miles long, and requiring much cookery help ere their consumers praised them.
"I have never yet heard an explanation why there are only about one trout in the same burns and lochs for every ten now that there used to be seventy years ago; unless it be that then the moors washed into the lochs far more cattle débris than there happens now, when sheep with their horrid anti-fish 'tarry-woo' are everywhere, with a flavour as hateful to fish as it is to game; no eatable insect growing in sheep débris, while from cattle and horses crowds go to feed fish."
The Doctor's theory, that the falling off in the numbers of trout is due to the substitution of sheep for cattle, is generally accepted. Something is also due to unconscious expansion in reminiscences of the good old days, surrounded as they are by the halo of youthful enthusiasm; and no doubt there is too a real falling off in the number and weight of trout, owing to increased travelling facilities bringing north a far larger number of tourist-anglers. However extensive a loch may be, it must be remembered that its deepest parts are seldom feeding ground for trout, which mostly congregate in the shallows adjoining the shores and on the few banks there may be further out.
Next to Loch Maree itself, Fionn Loch, which is five hundred feet above the sea level, is the best known. It used to be celebrated for its yield of the so-called ferox. There is a wonderful record of the large number of these monsters that were captured in the months of March and April some thirty years ago by a celebrated sportsman.
My own experience of Fionn Loch is, that the trout have slowly but surely fallen off in number and size. In 1871 I remember making some grand baskets on this high-level loch. We used to pass the night at the shepherd's house in the bay of Feachasgean, and the evening and the morning made our day. Our bags generally included two or three fish of four or five pounds, and a dozen or two ranging from one to two pounds, at which last weight we could have got as many as we wished with a favourable breeze. At this time it was almost a virgin loch, and there was no road within four miles of it.