8 B. B. PARRISH 



north-western North Sea between the Scottish east coast and the Shetlands, 

 where the fishery took place between May and September on feeding, 

 maturing fish; and (2) off the East Anghan coast and southwards to the 

 entrance to the Enghsh Channel. This latter fishery took place principally in 

 October and November on mature fish on passage to their spawning 

 grounds off the Belgian and French coasts. 



In the period up to 19 14, the total landings from these fisheries grew, 

 especially at East Anglia, to reach about 700,000 metric tons in 1913.* 



The drift net fisheries again grew rapidly after the war time respite between 

 1914-18, and in the early post-war years the British fishery once more 

 provided the greater part of the total North Sea catch, but at a lower level 

 than pre-war. However, in the later inter-war years, important develoments 

 in the North Sea herring fisheries took place, which changed the picture 

 radically. The most striking of these was the growth of the German fishery. 

 This grew from average annual landings of less than 50,000 tons up to 1925 

 to over 250,000 tons in 1937. In this period the British landings dropped 

 substantially, and in 1937 were approximately the same as the German 

 landings. 



Unlike the British fisheries, which persisted with the drift net, fished from 

 relatively small, low-powered vessels, the German fishery was prosecuted 

 principally by trawl, fished from relatively large, high-powered craft. Its 

 growth also resulted in an extension of the areas fished; the 'Fladen ground 

 in the northern North Sea and the Dogger Bank region became important 

 North Sea herring fishing areas (Fig. 3). In this period, both the traditional 

 British drift net fisheries and the German trawl fishery were based almost 

 exclusively on adult (two year old and older), good quality herring, for 

 human consumption. 



As shown in Fig. 2, the total landings of herring by all countries fluctuated 

 widely, but in the inter-war years they grew to about the same level in the 

 late 1930's as in the immediate pre-war period. In both of these periods, 

 however, the pubhshed landing statistics are underestimates of the total 

 catch, due to substantial dumping of unsold catches in years of high produc- 

 tion in the British fishery. Although statistics of this discarded portion of the 

 catch are unavailable, verbal reports from Scottish port authorities place the 

 portion as high as 10-15 per cent of the Scottish catch in some of the years 

 of high yields. 



Herring fishing in the North Sea was again drastically reduced during the 

 second world war, but it grew rapidly again after 1945. The subsequent 

 years were marked by: 



* The North Sea 'tribe' was also fished in this period in the Bohuslan fishery off the west coast 

 of Sweden. These landings are not included in Fig. 2. 



