GRILSE 37 



grilse may be expected. When the grilse appear on 

 the coast of Skye it is certain they are not on their 

 way to any rivers in Skye, because the Skye streams 

 are in summer so small that even a grilse would run 

 aground amongst the stones. When the autumn 

 rains have swollen those streams, fish ascend to 

 spawn. In the same way the Raasay grilse must 

 be on a passage elsewhere, since there are absolutely 

 no salmon streams in the island. The manager of 

 the fisheries says he has no idea whence the fish 

 come or whither they go. 



But many of the grilse which travel along the 

 coast do not go into fresh water. When the chart 

 of curves illustrating the 1902 grilse fishing at 

 Aberdeen was constructed the net and coble fishing 

 was also recorded from the river mouth. The results 

 of this fishing in the river are far below the result 

 of the bag-net fishing on the coast to the north of 

 the river. It may be said in reply to this that the 

 coast nets met the first of the run and caught the 

 great majority of the fish. There is no means of 

 proving that they did not, but equally it may be 

 said there is no reason for believing that they did. 

 The fish were on the coast in great numbers. 



The following statement shows the number of grilse 

 and salmon, and their weights, taken at the fishings of 

 the Aberdeen Harbour Commission from 1872 to 1897, 

 the great majority of the grilse being captured in 

 coast nets. The table is from the sixteenth Eeport 

 of the Fishery Board for Scotland : 



