Twenty-Six Years Reminiscences of Scotch Grouse Moors

David was disgusted at messing with such trash, as he termed it, but soon even he warmed to it.

The waterfall had a nice pool scooped out by the falling water, and, standing down stream below the fall, thirty came out of that place.

It was great fun to come across water and fish in these islands that were totally unsophisticated.

We worked up and up for miles, until the burn – aye, and the fish too – began to get very small, and at five o'clock we turned back, fishing a few of the best places on our way. The waterfall gave but two more, and I expect that was the last two in the pool.

Weighed at the lodge, deducting the basket, they scaled just 23-1/2lb., and counted out 188 trout, just eight to the pound, and pretty little bright fellows they were.

David looked at them deprecatingly; repentance at being a party to anything so derogatory had come over him, and he viewed them philosophically, with the sole remark, "What a mess!"

My fishing was in low water. My son Douglas went up a few days after, meeting a rise of water, and he also had a great number, but out of places that I had not fished in low water.

The waterfall yielded none.

The burn was tried again on another day, but it was done for a season or two; as in other things in the world, you can't eat a cake and have it.

In August I took down my family party for their holidays. There would be little or nothing to shoot, a few cock birds to pick out of the broods and some sundries, of course. The boys could fish away for trout and get a few odd salmon out of the Upper Thurso and Loch More, but they were very coppery and red at that season.

During the first fortnight David and I hunted the whole of the ground, killing the old cocks out of the broods when opportunity occurred.

The increase of birds was very satisfactory, quite 150 broods on the ground, and fine broods too.

Dunbar had been very fortunate, and let Strathmore to an old connection; rather more birds had been left by the scourge on the lower beats of Strathmore than on Dalnawillan. Those beats are the best ground in Caithness, and if there are any birds there they naturally will be. Dunbar looked the matter well in the face, told the tale, the whole tale, and let it on a seven years' lease, commencing, if I remember right, with a rent of £300, increasing up to £575, or thereabouts.

The gentleman who took it knew exactly what he was about. The good years that would accrue after disease were before him.

The year after the expiration of the seven-year lease and cycle, disease was again ravaging, and there was little or no shooting for two or three years after that.

The new tenant nursed the birds the first season, killing only a few cocks or so.

In September, with one of the boys, I went over to Orkney, to try the fishing of the Loch of Stennes. We landed from the tub of a steamer that plied between Scrabster and Stromness, after a terribly bad passage across the Pentland Firth. The tide ran very strong, the wind met it, and the steamer, built on the lines of a walnut shell, rolled about in the trough of the sea.

We landed, and hiring a cart to carry our traps, tramped away to the top of the loch in Harray parish, and lodged with Peter Flett, farmer and miller.

The trout were most beautiful, equal to any sea trout, but not plentiful, anyhow very stiff to rise; they ran all sizes. Our best day to two rods was 17-1/2lb., the largest scaling 2lb. 6oz.

On one other day we had fish of 1lb. 4oz. and 1lb., and amongst our take were some half-pound sea trout.

The loch was terribly ottered by the small farmers and crofters, but with very coarse horse-hair tackle. Certainly they did not get many; but, no doubt, that put them down from rising to the fly.

The ottering was not poaching, because every freeholder had the right, and nearly all were freeholders.

I asked Flett where he got his land from. "My father," said he; "and he had it from his father, and his father before him." I dare say if Peter and I could have traced it we should have found that the title commenced with his Scandinavian ancestors, who stole the land from the Pict, who lived in an underground house designed after the pattern of an improved fox-earth.

"What is done with the younger sons, Flett?"

"Oh, they go to the fishing, or into the Hudson Bay Co.'s employment." That was primogeniture with a vengeance. I wonder what the land reformers would have to say to that.

"Flett, what deeds have you to show?" – "Deeds! what do we want with deeds?" – "Well, suppose you want to mortgage." – "Orkney people don't mortgage," says Flett, with his nose in the air.

In a few days we had enough.

We loaded our traps on Peter's cart, and returned to Stromness, looking at an underground Pict's house on the way, where perhaps Flett's ancestor had disposed of the aborigines, by smoking them, and stopping up the outlets, as you would stifle rats.

Also we saw the Stones of Stennis, which, as Druidical remains, rank with Stonehenge.

We stopped on our way at the bridge that crosses the outlet of the loch to the sea, to try for sea trout. The tide water comes up to the bridge, and a little beyond, and from the bridge to the sea was about a mile.

On the rise and fall of the tide we landed six sea trout weighing 6-1/2lb., the largest 2-3/4lb.

On the fall of the tide the sea trout stopped taking, and then the sillocks came as fast as possible. We had seventy-nine of them in little over an hour.

I was very much pleased with Orkney. The land was good, and the climate was better than that of the mainland.

There were some grouse, and, as far as I could learn, the best moor was in Harray parish, where we had been fishing.

The moor was a common, and the whole of the commoners joined in granting a lease to the tenant of the shooting. I think the rent was £35 a-year, and he took off about 200 brace of grouse, and a really considerable number of snipe and plover, and I believe it was true that there was no disease. The game sold for more than paid the rent.

Season 1876

Pretty much a repetition of the previous season; grouse were increasing fast, but none to spare for the gun.

I worked away at the cock birds, and let the boys get their hands in on the outside beats, where the birds would not be missed, breaking them in work as well as the dogs.

In the spring of this year, carrying out the idea propounded by Dunbar, utilising my experience of American house building in wood, of which I had taken careful particulars when in that country a year or two previously, I built a small lodge near to Altnabreac station, containing kitchen, parlour, and five bedrooms, and let it, with 12,000 acres of moorland, for three years – first year £200, second and third year at £300 a year, including keeper, with a proviso that if my keeper was of opinion that the birds could not be spared the bag should be limited to 100 brace in the first year, and in that event I was to return £100 of the rent.

I did limit them, and sent them a check for £100.

The railway was open and a station stuck down in the middle of the moorland four miles from Dalnawillan Lodge and seven from Glutt, no road, or footpath even, in any direction from the station.

It was stuck down in the centre of the moorland to take its chance.

For the use of Dalnawillan and Glutt Dunbar and I did our best to induce the proprietor to make the four miles of road that was needed.

We offered during the tenancy of our leases to pay the proprietor six per cent. on the £600, which was the estimated cost of the road, and do the repairs ourselves, but of no avail. At last it was settled that I should make the road and find the money, the cost, with interest at five per cent., to be repaid to me by twelve equal yearly instalments, of which the proprietor contributed half, Dunbar a quarter, and myself a quarter. The road was made and open ready for use for the shooting season of 1876.

After about a fortnight at Dalnawillan I took a trip into Shetland with my boy Charlie, to verify the wondrous tales of sea trout that were to be had in every tidal stream and loch.

It was a miserable disappointment, every fish that could be had was poached on the spawning beds and by any other means at any other time; but on some of the outer islands, I believe, matters were better.

What there were were very fine fish; we had nine in all, four of which weighed 6-1/2lb.

What a small world it is! Charley was fishing away in Brouster Loch in waders up to his middle, when someone calls out: "Holloa, Charley, what are you doing here?" And there was his class master at Clifton College also up to his middle.

On our return to Caithness we had a horribly stormy passage from Lerwick to Wick, putting in for the night at Kirkwall in Orkney, to shelter from stress of weather.

Lerwick is a very pretty little town, the most northerly in Great Britain, doing a good and lively trade in fishing matters, and having a great many visitors in the season. For those cockneys who have the blessed faculty of defying mal de mer, and enjoying bottled porter and a pipe with the ocean in commotion – and my experience, so far as it goes, is that in those northern latitudes it always is in commotion – what can be a pleasanter or a cheaper sea trip than to go by the Aberdeen boat from London Bridge to Aberdeen, and thence to Lerwick viâ Wick, and round the islands in the trading steamer, and home by the West Coast.

Shetland from the outside looks very nice. It is indented in every direction with fiords, or voes they call them there, with very fine cliff scenery.

But the inside is dismal, the crofters and fishermen pare the turf and heather for winter bedding for their cattle, and, what with that and peat cutting for fuel, they leave the surface of the hills very black looking and hideous.

There is some good heather, perhaps about seven thousand acres, in the main island, and it would, no doubt, carry some grouse, if any means could be devised for destroying the swarms of greyback gulls, hoodie crows, and hawks.

Not a living thing can show, without being pounced upon and devoured. The only game of any description that I saw was two snipe; not even a rabbit.

Before I went it had struck me as an anomaly that there should not be grouse, and I looked well into the question of whether grouse could be profitably introduced, but, looking at the small amount of moorland, and the large cost, if not impossibility of destroying the vermin, I gave up the notion. I notice from letters in the Field and elsewhere that others are agitating the question, and they will do well to thoroughly bottom the question before incurring heavy responsibilities.

One thing that strikes a visitor is the incessant knitting on the part of every woman and girl; no matter when or where, the knitting needles incessantly ply. Carrying baskets of peats from the hills in creels on their backs, still the needles ply in front.

Some of their knitting is very beautiful. The common goods are knitted from imported yarn, but the beautiful shawls are knitted from yarn spun from the fully-grown wool of the indigenous native sheep.

The wool is not clipped, but pulled when fully ripe.

The native sheep are of all colours, white, brown, yellow, &c., and many piebald.

With these colours the varied colours of the best quality Shetland shawls are derived from the natural colour of the wool, without dyeing.

Some of the shawls are exquisitely fine, and fetch large prices. For one, many yards square, I gave £5. Of course it was a unique specimen, and afterwards, in England, I was assured that it was a cheap purchase. It could be doubled up not much larger than a pocket handkerchief.

Season 1877

At last a gleam of sunshine. Seasons 1873, '74, '75, and '76, four long years practically blank, and heavy expenses running the while; it was a heartbreaking business, worse than my experience in Banffshire. But at last I was to expect some moderate shooting for two guns, and my expectations were realised.

Season 1878

This was to be really good shooting for two guns.

My son Oliver was to be home from New York for a holiday, and I reserved the shooting for him and myself, and very pleasant shooting we had. We shot together —

Season 1879

This was the eighth year that I had paid rental for this moor, and this was the second year out of the eight that it would afford shooting for more than two guns.

I had a very fine stock of birds upon the ground. I had nursed the stock judiciously. I had not shot it down when recovering from disease, and at last the moor was full of birds, and for the next two or three years, until the scourge paid its next visit, we might shoot and hammer away at the birds, without detriment. Nothing that we could do in the way of shooting could possibly reduce the breeding stock below what it should be, until disease again reduced it.

I had relet the Rumsdale side, with 10,500 acres, for three years, at £300 per annum, leaving, say 13,500 acres to Dalnawillan shooting.

We laid ourselves out for a fine bag, and we had it.

I said to David, "Last season, shooting with Mr. Oliver, we made together over six hundred brace. Now, we have treble the birds we had to begin that season. If I go to work shooting steadily by myself, say seven hours a day for four days a week, can I take off 600 brace to my own gun and for once make a swagger bag?" – "Yes, you can," says David. – "Then I will do it," responded I; so it was arranged to shoot the moor in two parties, myself one party, and two guns in the other party; each party taking the beats fairly in turn.

The second party of two guns was made up of the three elder boys and a friend, shooting five days a week, weather permitting, taking their turns alternately, the men out, going after snipe and ducks and fishing.

I started with 42 brace on the 12th, and on the 14th 52½ brace, and continued to make good bags. On August 26, my fifty-eighth birthday, I came in with 50½ brace; it was the second time over the beat, and on September 15, in twenty-one days shooting, I numbered 617 brace, close upon an average of 30 brace a day besides sundries.

Generally through Scotland moors had not fairly recovered their full complement of birds, and I believe it was acknowledged that 617 brace was the best bag in Scotland made that season to one gun in the first five weeks shooting over dogs.

We had a fine time and a very enjoyable time, and up to the 16th of September, when we went south, we had taken off 1138 brace.

In October I returned with two other men to shoot under the kite, and we took off just 200 brace. When at Glenmarkie, I could do nothing with the kite, the birds rolled up before it and away for a couple of miles.

October shooting in Caithness and Sutherland over dogs under the kite when birds are plentiful, is very grand sport. It is the acme of point shooting.

In October the air is crisp and bracing, there is plenty of walking, and you are in the best condition, or you ought to be.

The kite is a large kite, much larger than the partridge kite used in England, and is flown very high, and so covers a large extent of ground. It is worked down wind in front of the gun, so the dog has to work down wind and on ticklish birds; therefore I need not say that it requires clever old experienced dogs. Many good August dogs cannot get into it.

Packs of six to twelve birds rarely sit well; they rise at sixty to one hundred yards, but the small lots and single birds sit fairly well, rising at twenty to thirty yards.

They rise in front like a wisp of lightning, hardly well up before they turn to the right or left and away behind you. They should be taken just on the turn. It is very difficult to get in a second barrel unless, as they turn and go past they are near enough for a skimming side shot.

Good driving shots have said to me that the man who can walk and kill October grouse under the kite, and kill them well, can kill anything.

October sport with the kite is very uncertain. There may be too much wind or too little, and in that month you sometimes get very bad weather and more snow than is pleasant, and then of course birds are very wild and unsettled.

Big bags cannot be made under the kite; an average of 15 brace per day to a gun is very good. I never managed to make 20 brace; twice I have made 19½, and could generally average 15.

There is an impression that the kite puts birds off the ground, and generally makes them wild; but I don't think so. Of course the beats are changed, and my impression is that it has no more effect than an eagle hovering and then going on.

Those who have kited and driven, tell me that driving disturbs and unsettles the birds far more than the kite.

A number of grouse were, in addition, killed by the keeper during the winter months.

The total to my own bag was 674 brace of grouse, and 48½ brace of sundries.

Season 1880

Another grand season, the best out of the seventeen years of the lease.

On the first and second days I shot by myself, taking off fifty-four and forty-four and a half brace respectively. I was in very good form, and began by getting sixteen brace without slipping a cartridge.

After the first two days we shot in two parties of two guns each. Up to September 16, when we went south, we had 1284½ brace.

In October I returned, with another man, to shoot under the kite, and we made 188½ brace.

The sundries included ninety-seven snipe, the greatest number ever made in one season.

The Rumsdale party shot very hard almost every day to end of season.

A number of grouse were in addition killed by my keeper during the winter.

Season 1881

Grouse had culminated to their highest level, the highest ever known in the record of the Dalnawillan moors, and were now to recede, and again undergo the scourge.

In the spring, birds were looking well, and in great plenty.

We could not say that there was disease amongst them, in fact, we could have conscientiously said that we had not seen a diseased bird. But, later on, we saw barren birds, nests not so well filled as they should be; and in August, many birds shabbily feathered on the legs, and thin breasted.

There was nothing like the quantity of birds as in the previous August, bad nesting would account for that. Some broods would, perhaps, jump up, with one or two miserable chirpers in addition to one old bird, and barren birds also were plentiful.

The moor was shot in two parties of two guns each, and afforded fair sport.

We did not return in October, as the prospects were not sufficiently encouraging.

Season 1882

I was anxious about the birds, in fact, in my own mind it was a foregone conclusion. But Black wrote in the spring to say that there was a fair stock upon the ground, and looking pretty well, though now and again seeing a bad bird, and he was inclined to think that disease was to pass over with the brush of the previous year; but disease was due, and I had my misgivings that history would repeat itself.

Nothing very particular occurred during the nesting season, and in August we went down, expecting some fair shooting, but it was not so; it was a great disappointment. With all our experience and careful watching of the state of the birds, they had died off – imperceptibly dwindled away since the spring.

Disease in this attack was very different in its aspect from former attacks. They come on very suddenly, sharp and decisive; but on this occasion I have no doubt but that it had been hanging about all through 1881, and also in the spring and summer of 1882, steadily wearing away the birds bit by bit.

There was little to shoot, and I agreed with my neighbours that we should all spare our birds, and nurse what were left. My tenant at Rumsdale would not hold his hand, and shot away, to my serious detriment, as it was the last year of his lease.

Season 1883

Disease had worn itself through in the season of 1882, and birds were clean, but very scarce, in the spring of 1883, and needed careful nursing, so I went down for a few days, hunting the ground, and found a sprinkling of birds on Dalnawillan, and next to none on Rumsdale.

I killed all the cocks I could, and Black followed them up after I left.

Season 1884

Dalnawillan, carefully considering the matter, could spare a few birds; what breeding stock there was has done well, but there were not enough birds to make it worth while to take down a party, so I let the place for the season to two gentlemen, with a limit of 300 brace, of course, at a small rent.

The attraction was the fishing and a pleasant lodge and surroundings for their holiday.

By myself I went down for a fortnight to shoot on the Rumsdale ground, to take off just what I thought could be spared.

I found pretty well of birds on the beats adjoining Dalnawillan, and took off 170½ brace.

A fair, but moderate, breeding stock was left on both moors.

Season 1885

Very pleasant shooting, bags not large, but enough to keep going; game good and healthy.

I let Rumsdale to a gentleman, who shot by himself his own gun only.

Season 1886

A very good season, both on Dalnawillan and Rumsdale. Shooting up to Sept. 13th in two parties: of two guns each gave 1006½ brace, and in October a further bag of 205 brace to three guns; a most charming fortnight's shooting.

This season was to me a red letter year in Scotch sport; very considerable success rewarded my personal endeavours in every way.

During the month of April I fished on the Thurso and on Loch More, as one of the party of eight rods, all fishing from Strathmore Lodge, and I killed fifty-three salmon.

Sixteen of them, weighing 164-1/2lb., I made in the one day, the 15th, to my own rod on No. 8 beat of the river. On that day good fortune seemed to attend me at all points; they were taking surely in heavy dead water pools, and I bagged every fish into which I bent the rod – a most unusual circumstance. Many never showed a rise, they sucked the fly under water.

The first fish damaged the fly, the next fourteen were taken with one fly, a small silver-grey, no change of fly, but retied several times to the single gut cast.

The last fish, a fifteen-pounder, I had moved in the morning, in fact the first rise, and the last thing before leaving off I crossed the river and changed for a larger size silver-grey as the light was failing, and at that he came like a lion.