HAL.—If you could have seen this river twenty years ago, when the cruives were a mile higher up, then you might have enjoyed fishing. There were eight or ten pools, of the finest character possible for angling, where a fisherman of my acquaintance has hooked thirty fish in a morning. The river was then perfect, and it might easily be brought again into the same state; but even as it is now, with this single good pool and this second tolerable one, I know no place where I could, in the summer months, be so secure of sport as here—certainly no where in Great Britain. POIET.—I have often heard the Tay and the Tweed vaunted as salmon rivers. HAL.—They were good salmon rivers, and are still very good, as far as the profit of the proprietor is concerned; but, for angling, they are very much deteriorated. The net fishing, which is constantly going on, except on Sundays and in close time, suffers very few fish to escape; and a Sunday’s flood offers the sole chance of a good day’s sport, and this only in particular parts of these rivers. I remember the Tweed and the Tay in a far better state. The Tweed, in the late Lord Somerville’s time, always contained taking-fish after every flood in the summer. In the Tay, only ten years ago, at Mickleure, I was myself one of two anglers who took eight fine fish,—three of them large salmon,—in a short morning’s fishing: but now, except in spring fishing, when the fish are little worth taking, there is no certainty of sport in these rivers; and one, two, or three fish (which last is of rare occurrence,) are all even an experienced angler can hope to take in a day’s skilful and constant angling. POIET.—You have fished in most of the salmon rivers of the north of Europe,—give us some idea of the kind of sport they afford.