When, O stranger, thou hast reached a burn where the shepherd asks thee
for the newspaper wrapped round thy sandwiches, that he may read the
news, then erect an altar to Priapus, god of fishermen, and begin to
angle boldly.
Probably the troops who fish our Border-burns still manage to toss out
some dozens of tiny fishes, some six or eight to the pound. Are not
these triumphs chronicled in the "Scotsman?" But they cannot imagine
what angling was in the dead years, nor what great trout dwelt below the
linns of the Crosscleugh burn, beneath the red clusters of the rowan
trees, or in the waters of the "Little Yarrow" above the Loch of the
Lowes. As to the lochs themselves, now that anyone may put a boat on
them, now that there is perpetual trolling, as well as fly-fishing, so
that every fish knows the lures, the fun is mainly over. In April, no
doubt, something may still be done, and in the silver twilights of June,
when as you drift on the still surface you hear the constant sweet plash
of the rising trout, a few, and these good, may be taken. But the water
wants re-stocking, and the burns in winter need watching, in the
interests of spawning fish. It is nobody's interest, that I know of, to
take trouble and incur expense; and free fishing, by the constitution of
the universe, must end in bad fishing or in none at all.
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