The beauty of the scene, the
pleasant talk, the daffodils on the green isle among the Celtic graves,
compensate for a certain "dourness" among the fishes of Loch Awe. On the
occasions when they are not dour they rise very pleasant and free, but,
in these brief moments, it is not of legends and folklore that you are
thinking, but of the landing-net. The boatman, by the way, was either
not well acquainted with _Marchen_--Celtic nursery-tales such as Campbell
of Islay collected, or was not much interested in them, or, perhaps, had
the shyness about narrating this particular sort of old wives' fables
which is so common. People who do know them seldom tell them in
Sassenach.
LOCH-FISHING
LITTLE LOCH BEG
There is something mysterious in loch-fishing, in the tastes and habits
of the fish which inhabit the innumerable lakes and tarns of Scotland. It
is not always easy to account either for their presence or their absence,
for their numbers or scarcity, their eagerness to take or their
"dourness." For example, there is Loch Borlan, close to the well-known
little inn of Alt-na-geal-gach in Sutherland. Unless that piece of water
is greatly changed, it is simply full of fish of about a quarter of a
pound, which will rise at almost any time to almost any fly. There is
not much pleasure in catching such tiny and eager trout, but in the
season complacent anglers capture and boast of their many dozens.
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