SALMON OF THE AWE.
THE River Awe, in Argyllshire, presents, to my mind, the perfection of
angling water. A fine brawling stream, a constant succession of pools,
some easy to fish, some only fishable by past masters, lovely, deep,
roach-backed salmon trout--all these are bad to beat, and when one adds
the fact that the run of the heavy fish takes place in June and July,
after the Orchy fish have run through, the two months of all others,
perhaps, when salmon fishing is enjoyable, I do not think any further
arguments need be urged to enforce my point.
Were I a rich man--which I am not--I should feel inclined to do my best
to secure the fishing rights on that merry little river in preference
to many others of high repute. It is now many years since I first
wetted a line on the Awe. My old gillie, Black Peter, or the "Otter,"
as he was frequently called, has, I fear, gaffed his last salmon and
drunk his last glass of whisky, and (save the mark!) he was mighty good
at both. I can see him now, in his somewhat tattered kilt, hanging
on to the porch of the Clachan, trying to steady himself, to give me
a right cordial welcome when I arrived. No more will he swim the Awe
when in spate to land a fish for the "Colonel" that had jumped itself
on the rocks on the opposite side of the river, some mile or two above
the bridge--a foolhardy feat in such water; but he was always full of
sport, and not infrequently, alas, equally full of whisky.
The head of water in this bonnie little river is always maintained
fairly well by its being the affluent of Loch Awe. It is not,
therefore, so liable to the quick rises and falls of most rivers. The
loch is fed by the River Orchy, which flows into its north-eastern
end, whilst the Awe, after passing through the Pass of Brander, forms
its only outlet. All the Orchy fish, therefore, have to run up the Awe
to get to their own waters. These fish run early in the spring, never
dwelling for any length of time in the Awe; and, curiously enough, any
tyro could at once differentiate between the salmon of the two rivers,
though they have a common outlet to the sea. The Orchy fish are long,
lanky, and plain as compared with the short, thick-set beauties of the
Awe. I recollect once in Ireland coming across the same difference in
fish using the same _embouchure_. It was in Donegal, where the Crolly
and the Clady unite at Dum Drum. In this case also one lot of fish are
poor in shape, whilst the others are of totally different calibre. And,
moreover, in that case the fish never seem to lose their way. Seldom is
a Crolly fish found in the Clady, or _vice versâ_. How accurate are the
instincts of nature!
The lower reaches of the river Awe are very varied and very beautiful.
The river has churned its way through the solid rock. The two Otter
Pools, Arroch and the Long Pool, are good examples of the rock-hewn
gorges. In the latter, a fine quiet stretch of water, where local
knowledge of the lie of fish is valuable, switching or spey casting is
necessary if you wish to avoid being constantly hung up in the trees
above. The Red Pool, just above the stepping stones, can only be fished
from a plank staging fixed high above the water, and should you hook a
heavy one at the tail end and he means going down you will be thankful
enough when you have safely negotiated the return journey on the high
plank and reached the shore. Even then you have plenty of excitement in
store before you can hope to see him on the bank. The rocky sides of
the chasm do not form a racing track. But get him once safely down to
the Stepping Stone Pool and he should be yours.
This same pool, by the way, is not altogether the place for a beginner,
for when the river is in order the aforesaid stepping stones have about
two feet or more of fairly heavy water over them; and as they are
well-worn boulders, somewhat inclined to be rounded on the top, and
are placed at a rather inconvenient distance from one another, they are
apt to make a nervous man think. One friend, I can well remember, when
I asked him to fish the pool, absolutely declined, asking me if I took
him for a "blooming acrobat." Below again we come to the Cruive Pool,
a long cast from another staging, the fish lying on the far side, just
about as far as an 18 ft. rod will get you. But be there in July when
the sun is setting, the redder the better, behind the hills on the far
side, and suddenly the silent oily water becomes broken with countless
rises, also on the far side. Put on then a cast of sea trout flies and
use your salmon rod, otherwise you will never reach them. Do not bother
with a landing net, but run them ashore on the shelving bank below you
and let your gillie take them off the hooks, and get to casting again
as soon as you can. The rise, though a good one, lasts, I assure you,
but a tantalisingly short time, and then the pool is as quiet and oily
as ever, and you would feel inclined to stake your bottom dollar that
there was not a sea trout within miles.
The Thunder and Lightning and the Blue Doctor are the local lures, and
kill well. One year, when the river was low and the fish as stiff as
pokers, I tied a "medicine" of my own that I fondly hoped would form a
standard fly on that water, for its effect was admirable at that time.
It was an olive fly, body olive silk ribbed with silver, tag a golden
pheasant, dark olive hackles, a light mixed wing with golden pheasant
topping. Having caught several fish that year with this fly, I got
Messrs. Eaton and Deller to dress me a stock, and must candidly admit
that never since then have I caught a single salmon with the "olives."
There are two pools, however, above the Long Pool that I have not
attempted to describe--the lower one the Yellow Pool, an ideal, leg
of mutton-shaped piece of water, where a beginner could not well go
wrong, and above it the Bridge Pool, so called because the railway line
crosses the neck of it. It was in this pool that I once had a rare bit
of sport. The whole of the water I have attempted to describe was then
hotel water, the fishermen staying at the inn having the right to fish
for a nominal sum--5_s._ a day I think it was. But the river had been
in fair order, and several good fish had been got. It was then rapidly
getting on the small side. The records of the previous week having
been published in the columns of the _Field_, the inevitable result
was a rush of ardent anglers, and the dozen or so of good pools--nice
water for two rods--was perfectly inadequate to accommodate the six
keen fishermen who had arrived to try their luck. It was necessary,
therefore, to "straw" for the pools, and to my lot fell the Bridge and
Yellow Pools. The next morning, on reaching my little beat, I found the
Yellow Pool far too low to be fishable, and there remained only the
Bridge Pool. Fishing it down carefully twice produced no result, so I
lit a pipe and clambered up on to the railway bridge to scan the water
below me.
I was able, after a careful search with shaded eyes, to locate three
fish, all low down on the far side, lying behind a big stone below the
water and upon a slab. I could see at once that to reach them I should
have to do my utmost in the casting way, and should have, moreover,
to bring my line up through the centre arch of the bridge above me to
get out the length I wanted; but it seemed to me that if I could get
my fly to travel and work well over the oily water formed by the stone
it ought to be irresistible to any well-conducted fish. So, putting on
a small Thunder, I regained the water side. The second cast brought
up the smallest of the three fish, who made no bones about it, but
hooked himself handsomely, and was shortly after disposed of in the
tail of the pool; he weighed a bare 9 lb. The other two I knew were
better fish; one I had seen should be over 20 lb., the other, a very
pale-coloured fish, I could not see distinctly enough to form any idea
as to his weight. Back I went to my spying point, only just missing
being caught on the narrow bridge by a passing train, to see, to my
delight, that the other two fish were there, apparently undisturbed.
After a few casts the fly went exactly as I could have wished, and
there was the answering boil. "By Jove! that is the big one I think;
anyway, he is hooked, and well hooked, too." After a long, splashy
fight in the pool I got on terms with him, and he began to flounder,
and then I could see I had the light-coloured fish on. The big one was
still there, I hoped. The pale fish soon came to the gaff, and, getting
it nicely home with the left hand, I hauled him on to the bank, a good
fish, and in good condition, turning the scale at barely 17 lb.
By this time the pool had had a good doing, and I judged it advisable
to give it a rest. The Yellow Pool, which I had fished down more
for occupation than for anything else, yielding me no response--and,
indeed, it was all I expected--I ate my luncheon, lit my pipe, and
proceeded once more to my vantage spot. There, sure enough, was the
big fish, undisturbed and immutable. Unable to restrain my impatience,
I sent a fly (the same one that had accounted for the two other fish)
on its errand of quest. But there was no movement, no reply, nor was
there to two other changes of fly I put over him. Having nowhere else
to fish, and being disinclined to try the Yellow Pool again, as I felt
sure it would be hopeless, I sat me down to cogitate and look over
my fly box. The day had become sultry and heavy, and clouds had been
rolling up, and suddenly there broke a regular deluge of rain, turning
the pool into a seething mass of big drops. Instinctively I ran for
shelter under the bridge, but before I reached it changed my mind and
determined to try once more for the big one in the heavy rainstorm.
Hastily putting on a Thunder and Lightning two sizes larger, I sent him
out, braving the ducking I was undergoing. The first fly that reached
the spot was answered by a fine head and tail rise, and I was fast in
the big one. For a short time he played sulkily, either through not
grasping the situation or through trying to induce me to believe him to
be a small one. But I was not to be deluded, and, as he kept edging up
into the big water coming down the centre arch of the railway bridge, I
let him have a bit of the butt of my 18 ft. Castleconnell. But, with a
savage shake of his head and strong whisk of his broad tail, he was now
thoroughly aroused, and, despite all I could do, up he went, carefully
threading the central arch and working up for all he was worth into
the heavy water round the corner. My running line was thus against the
buttress, but, despite the imminent danger of being cut, there was
nothing to do but give him "beans." Fortunately for me my lucky star
was in the ascendant. A convenient patch of moss between the courses
of the bricks saved my line from the grinding process; the strain of
my supple rod, combined with the weight of the water, did the trick. I
felt him yield, reeled up as hard as I could, but, as he turned tail
and came down (fortunately for me through the same arch), I soon had
to give up reeling in in order to haul in the line by hand to keep
touch with him in his downward rush. Steadying the line when he got
ahead of me, I felt he was still on. Ten minutes of the fight against
rod, water, and luck had been enough for him, and, rolling on his
side, he swung round into the slack below me. I had had no chance till
then of taking my gaff off my back; luckily it came off my shoulders
quite freely, and the steel went home. As I hauled him out with some
difficulty, the hook, which had worn a big hole, came out of his jaw;
so my luck continued to the last. I could not make him scale 30 lb.; he
was a good 29½ lb., and, inasmuch as I had never landed a fish of 30
lb. or upwards, that part was somewhat aggravating. But, as I toiled
home that evening over the three miles of sleepers and rails to the inn
with the three fish weighing just about half-a-hundredweight, I several
times wished he had not been quite so heavy.
The upper waters of the Awe, above Awe Bridge, formerly retained by the
Marquis of Breadalbane in his own hands, and therefore not open to the
general public, can nowadays be fished from Dalmally Hotel. Through
that nobleman's enterprise one of the two big cruives has been done
away with, and there is to be an additional slap nightly, between 6
p.m. and 6 a.m. The results cannot but be both beneficial and prudent.
The characteristics of these upper waters are totally distinct from
those of the lower ones, being unusually broken and rapid, the pools
small, and not easily distinguishable.
The pent up waters of Loch Awe, finding through the dark Pass of
Brander their only outlet to the sea, take full advantage of their
opportunity, and rush and boil over the boulder-bestrewn bed of the
river in a way that renders it imperative that your gut should be of
the best, your tackle sound, and your determination great that you will
not consent to be a mere follower of a hooked fish, but intend to give
him "beans" when necessary.
The Black and Seal Pools and Verie are fairly typical of the upper Awe
waters; most of them are fished from planks rigged out on staging,
and wading is not generally practicable. A hooked fish can never be
reckoned on as caught, nor can you ever be certain of him until the
gaff has gone home and your fish lies on the bank beside you. This
remark, of course, applies in a greater or lesser degree to all salmon
fishing; but here the perils from heavy water, combined with the
rugged, rock-strewn bed, afford unusual chances of escape, and at the
same time add much to the sporting charms of a successful capture.
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