se. Still, it was not bad when
we were boys. We had Ettrick within a mile of us, and a finer natural
trout-stream there is not in Scotland, though now the water only holds a
sadly persecuted remnant. There was one long pool behind Lindean,
flowing beneath a high wooded bank, where the trout literally seemed
never to cease rising at the flies that dropped from the pendant boughs.
Unluckily the water flowed out of the pool in a thin broad stream,
directly it right angles to the pool itself. Thus the angler had, so to
speak, the whole of lower Ettrick at his back when he waded: it was a
long way up stream to the bank, and, as we never used landing-nets then,
we naturally lost a great many trout in trying to unhook them in mid
water. They only averaged as a rule from three to two to the pound, but
they were strong and lively. In this pool there was a large tawny, table-
shaped stone, over which the current broke. Out of the eddy behind this
stone, one of my brothers one day caught three trout weighing over seven
pounds, a feat which nowadays sounds quite incredible. As soon as the
desirable eddy was empty, another trout, a trifle smaller than the
former, seems to have occupied it. The next mile and a half, from
Lindean to the junction with Tweed, was remarkable for excellent sport.
In the last pool of Ettrick, the water flowed by a steep bank, and, if
you cast almost on to the further side, you were perfectly safe to get
fish, even when the river was very low. The flies used, three on a cast,
were small and dusky, hare's ear and woodcock wing, black palmers, or, as
Stoddart sings,

Wee dour looking huiks are the thing,
Mouse body and laverock wing.

Next to Ettrick came Tweed: the former river joins the latter at the bend
of a long stretch of water, half stream, half pool, in which angling was
always good. In late September there were sea-trout, which, for some
reason, rose to the fly much more freely than sea-trout do now in the
upper Tweed. I particularly remember hooking one just under the railway
bridge. He was a two-pounder, and practised the usual sea-trout tactics
of springing into the air like a rocket. There was a knot on my line, of
course, and I was obliged to hold him hard. When he had been dragged up
on the shingle, the line parted, broken in twain at the knot; but it had
lasted just long enough, during three exciting minutes. This accident of
a knot on the line has only once befallen me