196 Trawling on the Solway. 



warmer weather comes. If they are ever to emerge again it is 

 imperative that the sand in which they have taken refuge be clean 

 and loose, for though buried they need both air and water. The 

 fishermen are fully aware of the value of the conditions described, 

 and though to the landsman one part of the firth may seem just 

 like another, there are places where it is of no use whatever drag- 

 ging a trawl. Though an area of bottom may for years be unpro- 

 ductive, the fishermen do not forget that at any time a shifting 

 channel or the deflection of the tide is liable to turn this barren 

 ground into a productive area. There are places in which I 

 remember as a boy having seen the Annan fleet busy where now 

 it is the rarest occurrence to see a single smack, but with the 

 ceaseless change going on all round, it may be that in a few years 

 the boats will be at work again where for so long it has not been 

 worth their while. We have in fact in the Solway a shallow arm 

 of the sea whose bottom is culti\ated by Nature and where some- 

 thing approaching a rotation of crops occurs, with intervals in 

 which large sections lie fallow till the tide makes them productive 

 again. The amount of trawling done and the limit as to size of 

 boats and gear which is imposed by the shallowness of the water, 

 tend towards a preservation of the stock of fish, so that unless 

 some great change takes place we may expect to find the Solway 

 as productive years hence as it is at present. With reference to 

 the benefit accruing from the harrowing of the bottom by trawls, 

 it may be mentioned that so far as the flounder is concerned at any 

 rate this is very noticeable. If, for instance, a number of smacks 

 during a slack time work together on ground which is producing 

 only a very poor crop, it is found that the longer trawling opera- 

 tions continue the better the catch becomes. Of course, this state 

 of affairs does not go on indefinitely, for the movements of fish are 

 also influenced by the seasons, but it may be definitely stated that 

 the productiveness of a sandy bottom may be considerably 

 increased by continual trawling. I am quite aware that this is 

 contrary to accepted ideas on the subject, and, of course, it would 

 not be so if the Solway trawl boats were capable of the terrible 

 destruction accomplished by steam deep water trawlers. The fish 

 which engage the attention of the Solway trawlers are flounders, 

 plaice, soles, and skate. The latter are locally so called, but 

 really they are the Thornback Ray. Flounders are usually found 

 in shallow water and in channels between the banks. At certain 



