III

A MARCH SALMON

HOSE who aspire to take salmon on a

TH

fly in March must belong to one out of three categories. They must live in Scotland,

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the east coast for choice, or they must be born with silver (or, rather, golden) spoons in their mouths, or they must have some exceedingly kind friend who had that good fortune. On the principle that even the best of good sport in the world should not come too often for its most vivid enjoyment, I should say that those who come within the third category, as I do, get the most enjoyment out of a day's salmon-fishing in a good spring river in March. The excitement of anticipation is tremendous, especially if you have fished the same river before and the surroundings of every pool are indelibly fixed in your memory. I remember very well my first chance of getting a salmon. It was in the Dee, in late summer, and I was at Aberdeen, on my way back from

the Shetland Islands. A friend of mine, without my knowledge, had written to his brother, who had a rod on a bit of the Dee, to suggest his putting me up on my way through and giving me a chance of fulfilling a salmon-fishing ambition cherished for about thirty years, apparently never likely to be fulfilled. It was a fine experience, and impressed me with its big scale after my trout-fishing experiences. There was no wind, and plenty of stream to pull the line and to fish the fly, so conditions were favourable for my first experience with a big rod. My friend left me alone for an hour, after telling me the best casts. During that time nothing took my fly, but I had the thrilling experience of seeing what seemed to me like a porpoise roll over my line once, just as I recovered it. Maybe the salmon intended to take, and maybe he failed to do so because I did not let him have a chance. Then we went in a boat for a short distance, having a few casts by the way, and I was sitting down in the stern, reeling in my line, when, suddenly, there was an unexpected tug. It did not seem to me to be a very heavy one, and I did not realize what had happened until I reeled in more line and found that the fly had gone, the cast broken just above it. I asked whether

there could have been a stake or other obstruction in the water just there, but was told quietly there were none, and, by way of comment, that the salmon taken in that pool at that time of the year usually weighed about 30 lb. There is no need to recall any more of that day's experience!

There is a certain Mecca of salmon-fishers in early spring, a much smaller river than the Dee, on the east coast of Sutherland. Several times have I been bidden there, and never will those experiences be forgotten. First, the anticipation. It would take a whole book to describe that alone, if I described it fully. Then the journey. Such a journey! The dinner at Euston, the friendly train-conductors, one of whom I knew as a kindred spirit in fishing lore. The non-stop run to Rugby, the longing for sleep to come, with the promise of waking up in the wonderful air that makes Scotsmen what they are, the sleepy realization of achievement at the sound of "Car-r-stair-r-rs" being called on a platform in the night, the vast emptiness of Perth station, the sleep afterwards, with the determination to shave while the railway line is still mounting the gradient, so as to avoid cutting oneself severely as the speed increases

on the down-grade. Then the string of lochs and view of snow on the mountains, the larches, birches and dark-looking heather near the line. The brown, dead bracken, snow-laden. Then Kingussie. Travellers to the North of Scotland can be divided into those who know that by giving notice at Euston you can get a good breakfast-basket at Kingussie and those who think that you must wait for the change at Inverness. The former, at the summit of their joyful realization that the morning of arrival in Scotland in spring has really come, find themselves confronting a basket containing a really hot breakfast of bacon and eggs, hot tea, scones, oatcake and marmalade, all wrapped in clean paper, and all of the best. They have time for a smoke, and then they change trains leisurely at Inverness. The latter arrive there in a hurry, scramble for a hasty hotel breakfast, and then hasten to the platform for the northern line, with just time to find a seat and possibly none to get a newspaper. Not that that matters much. Who could read one, passing along that railway line up the northeast coast? There is one spot where the line leaves the sea and you get a glorious glimpse of salmon river, and then a view of a tree-clad gorge, with glimpses of coffee-brown rushing

waters and an occasional deep, still pool. By that time you are so filled with the joy of life that, if you have the carriage to yourself, you have to get up and dance, to work off some of it-at least, I did, regularly, up to the very last trip, which was not so many years ago. Then, later on, the coastal bits again, close enough to the beach to watch the bird-life thereon, the oyster-catchers showing up conspicuously amongst the others more soberly adorned. And then the arrival. The moment has come, and not the least of its pleasure lies in the hand-grip of the excellent gillie who was with me when I caught my first salmon, and who treats me as if the years that have passed since my last visit were only days. Soon I feel as if I had never been away from "the strath." The little town, the roads, the old bridge and the river seem to have changed very little; the people not at all. By good luck I have arrived on a day when we have the beat nearest to the station. The river is in order, and we can start almost at once. Salmon-fishing is strenuous work if your muscles are soft and you use a big rod (mine is a greenheart, seventeen feet four inches, for spring work in heavy water), and it is well for the unfit on the first day to conserve all energies