Part 7

When we arrived at the loch there was a good breeze blowing from the west, with no sun. We put a medium-sized “Jock Scott” on the salmon cast, while on the trout cast we put, as a tail fly, a queer, nondescript fly, which Sandy fancied, and, as a bob fly, a “March Brown.” These two latter flies were the ordinary medium-sized loch-trout flies, and we thought it wiser, as we knew that there were a lot of salmon in the loch, to put only two flies on the trout cast. My brother began fishing with the salmon rod in the stern of the boat, while I tried in the bow for trout. I very soon rose three or four trout, and managed to secure two, but my brother had no luck with the salmon. We had not been fishing for more than half an hour when the wind went down and the sun came out. The surface of the loch became absolutely calm, just like a sheet of glass, and fishing appeared to be hopeless. The salmon now began to jump in different parts of the loch, and, although Sandy said it was perfectly useless, we kept trying to cast over them. At length, however, we gave it up, and sat waiting for the breeze. Suddenly a salmon rose about twenty yards from the boat. I said, “Come on, Sandy, put me over that,” and, taking up the salmon rod, proceeded to cast over the place where the salmon had risen. With great difficulty I got the line out, as it was dead calm. I cast once, twice, and for a third time, and just as I was getting to the end of my cast on the third attempt, up came the salmon, rising apparently not with the intention of taking the fly, but with the intention of drowning it. I struck at him and hooked him, as we discovered later, by the tail, and a very lively time he gave me. He played for about twenty-five minutes, during which time he never showed himself, and we all thought he was much larger than he turned out to be. He was a nice clean fish about 9¼ lb. By the time we got him in the wind had risen, and we began to fish again, my brother taking the salmon rod, whilst I fished with the trout rod from the bow. I had not been fishing for more than a few minutes before I rose something which did not show itself. I struck, and exclaimed, “I’ve hooked him!” Away went the line off my reel for about thirty yards, and at the end of this run the fish, a salmon which looked considerably larger than the one we had already caught, jumped right out of the water, high into the air. Then began the longest and most exciting struggle I have ever had with any fish. The rod with which I was fishing was a light 11-feet trout rod; the cast was a medium-sized trout cast, and I had on my reel about forty to fifty yards of medium-sized trout-line. There is no doubt that I should have several times lost the fish had it not been for the extraordinary skill and speed with which Sandy followed him and managed the boat. Three times nearly all my line was taken out, and once I had only a few inches left on my reel. After his first rush the fish plunged deep down, and for a time adopted boring tactics. I was able to recover most of the line he had taken out, and then he made another run and a jump, and for some time after that we followed him over the loch. On two occasions he made the most determined efforts to get into some weeds, and it was only by keeping a very severe strain upon him that I managed to keep clear of them. I never played a fish which jumped so many times or sulked less. On one occasion, after taking a large amount of my line, he suddenly turned and headed straight back again for the boat, and although Sandy did all he could to keep out of his way, the fish startled us at the end of his mad run by jumping suddenly clean out of the water within three or four yards of the boat, and falling with a tremendous splash.

Do what I could I did not seem to have any real effect on the fish, who seemed to do almost exactly as he liked with me, except on the two occasions when he tried to get into the weeds, when, expecting every minute that we might part company, I was determined, whatever happened, that he should come where I wished him to come.

We saw that the fish had taken the bob fly, and this added to my apprehensions, as I was afraid, particularly as I knew the loch was not deep, that the tail fly would catch in something at the bottom of the loch, and there would then be a catastrophe. Time wore on, and my back and arms began to ache most prodigiously. Still the fish seemed as strong as ever. My brother said he must have some lunch, and whenever Sandy and I got the chance we managed to eat some sandwiches. I began to wonder how much longer the fly would hold, and whether this fish would prove to be one more of the many good fish lost through the fly working out at the end of a long fight.

I could do nothing except hold on for all I was worth, keeping as tight a line as I could, and, of course, lowering the point of the rod whenever the fish jumped, as he frequently did. As time went on, however, the rushes made by the fish were not so long, and he seemed, at last, to have abandoned his leaping tactics, which had given me so much anxiety in the earlier stages of the struggle. The fish was gradually becoming exhausted, and the strain on the rod and line seemed to be much greater. “He’ll be turning soon, I’m thinking,” said Sandy. The end, one way or the other, could surely not be far off now, and we discussed the question whether or not we should try to land, but, on the whole, we thought we had better not run the risk of getting into very shallow water. At last the fish turned on his side, though he quickly righted himself and made another short run. Sandy had got the boat in about three feet of water, a few yards from the bank; he handed the oars to my brother, seized the gaff, and got out of the boat. I slowly reeled in my line; there was another short rush from the fish, and again I reeled him up. Nearer and nearer he came to the boat, and again turned on his side. Suddenly, in less time than it takes to tell, Sandy had the gaff into him, and was struggling to the shore. Safely landed, the fish was speedily given his _coup de grâce_. He was a very red male fish, weighing rather over 10¼ lb., and I had hooked him in the hard part of his upper jaw, which accounted partly for the fact that I had so little power over him, and also for the fact that the hook had kept its hold so well. “Now then, Sandy,” I said, as I got out my flask, “if any man ever deserved a drop of good whisky, you do.” “Shlàinte” (Gaelic for “Your good health”), said Sandy. “It was a grand fight, sir; I’ve never seen a better.” “How long do you think you were playing him?” said my brother. “Somewhere about an hour, I should think,” I replied. “Four hours and six minutes,” he said. “I looked at my watch when you hooked him, and it was then just a minute or two before half-past one; and I looked at my watch when Sandy gaffed him--it was then twenty-five minutes to six. I counted the number of times the fish jumped, and it was seventeen. I don’t suppose you noticed it,” he added, “but there was a cart going off with peats, near the loch, soon after you began to play the fish, and it came back again not long ago.” We heard afterwards that the men in the cart thought I was playing another fish when they passed us on their return journey.

The light was going as we pushed the boat out again. I handed the salmon rod to my brother, and he began to fish from the stern of the boat, while I fished again from the bow with the trout rod. Sandy allowed the boat to drift slowly along the edge of some weeds. I do not think that I had more than three or four casts when, just as I was nearing the end of my cast, a salmon, which looked as bright as silver, and about the same size as the one we had just killed, rose at my tail fly, with a head and tail rise as if it meant business; and, as it turned to go down, I felt the hook go home. The fish did not run, but worked about near the surface of the water, close to the weeds, as if it did not realise that it was hooked at all. “Back the boat quickly, sir,” said Sandy, handing the oars to my brother, and seizing the gaff. My brother took the oars and backed the boat quickly in the direction of the fish. I reeled up my line; there was a momentary vision of about three-quarters of Sandy leaning out of the boat, a tremendously quick lightning-like movement of the gaff, and the salmon, gaffed with extraordinary skill behind the shoulder, was in the boat.

I do not think that more than four minutes could possibly have elapsed from the time that I hooked the fish to the time it was in the boat. It was a beautiful, clean-run female fish, with a small head, and in perfect condition. It was very lightly hooked, and if it had run or jumped at all it would almost certainly have got off. It weighed within a few ounces of the weight of the fish which had given me such a tremendous battle, and yet, owing to the extraordinary skill of Sandy with the gaff, and the speed with which my brother had acted, this fish occupied us only as many minutes as the other one had hours!

We continued to fish for a short time, but it became dark so rapidly that very soon we had to stop, and without a further rise of any kind.

X

THE HOMING INSTINCTS OF WOUNDED DEER

In these days one hears so much of the homing instincts of animals and birds that the two following authentic instances of deer, whose habits are not so generally known as those of some other animals, may be of interest.

Stalkers, and those who know the habits of the red-deer, know well that a stag when wounded will seek what he knows from experience to be a haven of safety. Thus, if he has come in the rutting season from his native forest and is wounded on other ground, he will assuredly make for the sanctuary in that forest. So, too, if he has been born and reared in a particular part of the forest and has come to regard that place as his home, he will struggle to reach it if wounded. One interesting illustration of this has come within my own experience, and another was related to me by the stalker who was with me on the occasion referred to.

I was stalking in a forest upon part of which unusual conditions prevailed. That part which was nearest to the lodge was enclosed by a deer fence, but, owing to careful management, and the introduction from time to time of fresh stock, there are some very good heads in this part of the forest. I always prefer, however, when I have the chance, to stalk on the open ground outside the fence, although it means harder work, as it is the far beat and part of it is on very high and precipitous ground. It has, however, this great fascination--that one never knows what sort of stag one may find there. The forest itself is an exceptionally good one, and marches with several of the finest forests in the Highlands.

On the day in question I was on the far beat and secured a good stag after an exciting stalk. After seeing the stag safely put on the pony in charge of the gillie, the stalker and I set off towards the farther end of the beat in the hope of getting a second stag. Not far from the march, on precipitous ground covered with rough boulders of rock, we spied a good stag with a large number of hinds. The deer were in an awkward position, and we found that it was impossible to get nearer to them than about 200 yards. The day was getting late, therefore this was probably our only chance. The stag was moving about and might very soon be over the march, so that there was no time to be lost. Getting quickly into the best position I could, I fired, and evidently hit the stag very hard. Directly I fired the deer disappeared as if by magic. The stalker said he was quite certain the stag could not go far. On reaching the spot on which the stag had been standing when I fired we found marks of blood, and had no difficulty in following these for some 50 yards, by which time we were close to the march, and in full view of a large corrie and other ground, all of which was in the neighbouring forest. We saw what were evidently some of the hinds making off across the march, but the stag and the rest of the hinds were nowhere to be seen. We moved a little farther on where we could get a view of other ground, when suddenly there was a tremendous clatter of loose stones, and we saw the stag and some twenty hinds about 120 yards from us. The deer stopped for a few seconds, the stag looking straight at us, and then away they went. We ran quickly to the point where they had disappeared, and saw the hinds we had last seen with the stag going in the direction which the other hinds had previously taken, but the stag was not with them. “He cannot go far,” said the stalker. The ground was very much broken up by large stones and boulders, and we both thought that the stag must be lying hidden not far from us. We were quite certain from the position we were in that we could not have failed to see him unless he had turned back below the hill and gone into the forest from which we had come. We noticed the hinds stopping every now and then and looking back, as they so often do when one of their number has been wounded and is behind them. By following the marks of blood on the stones we traced the course the stag had taken for about 200 yards, but after that we lost the tracks. We made the most careful search, and the stalker went some distance into the adjoining forest, but all in vain. The light was beginning to go, and at last we decided to give up the search, for that day at any rate. The stalker, who had had his glass on the stag when I had fired at him, said he was quite sure from what he saw then and from the way that the stag was bleeding that he had been mortally wounded and could not live long. I felt very much depressed, for if there is one thing that distresses me more than another it is to leave a wounded stag on the ground; and though I thought that the stalker with his experience was right in thinking that the stag could not live long, particularly as I knew my rifle and felt sure that I must have hit the stag somewhere not far from the heart, the fact remained that one could not be quite sure what had really happened. This was the last day of the season, and I was leaving on the following morning. The stalker promised me that he would search the ground on the following day, and that he would also tell the stalkers in the neighbouring forest, and that if he heard anything of the stag he would let me know. “I shall certainly know the head if it is ever found,” he said, “for when the stag looked straight at me I could see the space between his forks at the top. It was a ten-pointer, I think; the points were very regular, but as far as the head goes it is not much to grieve over, for it was on the narrow side.” “Still, it is a bad business,” I replied. “If we only had had a tracker we should certainly have got him without any trouble.” A really reliable tracker is indeed invaluable on an occasion of this kind, but it is only in a few forests that dogs are now used in following wounded stags. The noble deer-hounds which were the trusty allies of our fathers on the hill have during the last forty or fifty years been replaced in those forests where dogs are still used by the golden retriever, or more often by the collie, the two dogs last mentioned having been found more suitable for pursuing wounded deer. The deer-hound was so high-couraged that he would not bay the stag, but would pull him down or be killed by him. A further objection was that he would hunt by sight rather than by scent, it not being in his nature to put his nose to the ground, and it was therefore practically impossible to train him as a tracker.

I heard no more of the wounded stag until the following season, when I once more found myself in the same forest. I asked the stalker whether he had any news of the stag. He said: “That is a question. The stalkers in the other forest never found any stag, but a very curious thing has happened. About 20 yards inside the fence, at the nearest point in that part of the forest which is fenced in from where you shot the stag, that would be about a distance of three miles, the skeleton of a stag was found last April. The head stalker on that part of the forest tells me he is quite sure it was not a stag that was shot inside the fence. I have got the head here, and will show it to you.” I examined it carefully. It was a good regular head of ten points, with remarkably long forks at the top, and I thought it looked a better head than that of the stag I had shot, and said so to the stalker. He replied: “It is the same shape, and I well remember noticing the space between the forks at the top. Not only that, but in April when we found him there were no stags on that part of the ground and had not been for some time; also by the bleached condition of the horns, I am quite sure he must have died in October or early in November, and he could not have died a natural death after the winter was over. And as to his getting through the fence, at that season of the year stags have a wonderful way of getting through a fence if they want to do so. If he was mortally wounded after he got outside he would be sure to go back to the place where he was born and knew he was safe, and depend upon it he would find his way back through the fence where he got out. One can never be sure, but on the whole I think he is the stag you shot. You see the only way he could have gone that day without our seeing him was out of sight round that hill in the direction of the fenced-in part of the forest. I am sure he was mortally wounded, he had seen us; and after seeing us, being wounded, he would go straight on, as you know, so long as his strength would carry him and he would go straight to his old home. They’re wonderful in that way, deer are: I shall never forget how I was taught that years ago when I was out with the young chief at X.”