40 MODERN SEA FISHING 



So much, then, for the mainland of Scotland. Round 

 the northern groups of islands Orkney and Shetland the 

 sea fishing is often superb, except for bass, and there are 

 numbers of those inlets of the sea which are the happy hunting 

 grounds of bad sailors. Stornoway, in the Island of Lewis, is an 

 important fishing station, from a commercial point of view ; and 

 during the northerly and westerly winds there is a good shelter 

 here for the small-boatmen, who will get fair fishing for pollack 

 round the rocky headlands in the neighbourhood. Broad Bay, 

 to the north-west of Stornoway, deserves special mention as 

 being probably the finest haddock ground of the United 

 Kingdom. There are, of course, fish of other kinds, but 

 haddocks seem to crowd out almost everything else. It is a 

 shallow sandy bay, more or less free from tidal currents, 

 and can be fished easily and pleasantly with light tackle. I 

 have seen the crofters selling haddocks eighteen a shilling, so 

 plentiful were these fish. The cod and ling line-fishing com- 

 mences in the autumn, and ends in the late spring. In the 

 summer the herrings are attacked. 



Among the many inlets of the sea on both sides of Harris 

 and the islands to the south the fishing is fair to good. In 

 proper season the men catch pollack, haddock, and flat fish ; 

 but from my own experience, and what I could get to hear 

 about it, the general fishing is not quite so excellent as in the 

 sea-lochs of the north-west coast, to which I have previously 

 referred. 



There are places on the Irish coast at which first-rate fishing 

 can be had. From a commercial point of view, the east coast 

 is most important ; but for our particular purpose I should 

 rather prefer the west coast, where fish of all kinds seem very 

 abundant. That coast is, of course, greatly exposed to the 

 Atlantic ; but there are many sheltered places, as in the mouths 

 of rivers, between the mainland and islands, and in inlets of the 



