Living Silver 



Scotland where it found a home from home among the indepen- 

 dent insubordinate seamen of the Buchan coast. By the time Jan 

 heard of it, seine-netting was the most important single method 

 of fishing in northern Scotland. 



But, though their net could catch fish, the crew of a seine- 

 netter often had difficulty in discovering fish to catch. Their small 

 ships could not range widely over the whole North Sea as could a 

 trawler. The depths available to them were much more limited. 

 And they had to find a ground that was actually rich before it Wcis 

 worth their while to shoot their gear. It was only natural then 

 that, when they heard that a trawler was doing well over a parti- 

 cular ground, the seine-netters in the area should descend upon it. 

 Trawler skippers, therefore, began to loathe the little boats that 

 would arrive in droves as soon as a good haul was taken. There 

 would be so many of them that it became impossible to manoeuvre 

 the larger ship and, by the time they had finished, there wouldn't 

 be a fry to take home to the wife. Gradually, the trawlers moved 

 out, further and further, until the near waters became almost the 

 prerogative of the seine-netters. In this fight, as in so many other 

 marine battles, it was the smaller vessel that won. 



Size was important in a thousand ways. It determined the power 

 available both for searching out fish and for operating the gear. 

 The great advantage of the seine, apart from its actual efficiency, 

 was that it required so much less power to run it. And so the 

 economic tide turned back to the smaller ship. A ship that needed 

 less fuel, employed a smaller crew, a ship that cost less. And that 

 was why the seine net had taken the Scottish fishing industry by 

 storm. 



From the earliest of historic times there had been fishermen 

 on the Buchan coast, at Peterhead and Fraserburgh, Banff and 

 MacDuff, Buckie, Lossiemouth, Invergordon, and on up to Wick. 

 Once they caught fish by lines. Then the great steam trawlers 

 came and they swept the sea-floor, taking as many haddock in a 

 single haul as the whole line fleet would have brought up in a week. 

 Lining became unprofitable. But the men of Buchan did not have 



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