CHAPTER VI 

 THE DON 



ANGLING SEASON: February llth to October 31st. 

 NETTING SEASON: February llth to August 26th. 



District Fishery Board sits in Aberdeen. 



The Don is an ideal trouting river, and should by nature be 

 also a first-rate salmon river. Owing chiefly, however, to 

 manufactories of great importance which have sprung up and 

 become well established along its banks, the king of fishes does 

 not get a very good chance. Our interests are, of course, all 

 on the side of the salmon, our broad contention being that 

 there is room both for the manufactories and for the salmon, 

 and that the former need not be so conducted as to injure the 

 latter. 



The Don rises away on the ridge which separates Carn 

 Ealasaid and Ben Avon, close to the point where the river 

 Avon emerges from Glen Avon and turns sharp to the north 

 to join the Spey. The divide is an interesting one, for it 

 appears that in conformity with the geological axis of the 

 country the Avon at one time flowed on to form the Don. It 

 is one of those complications of erosion which have played 

 tricks in the formation of many parts of Scotland. The Don 

 from its source to the sea has a course of about 70 miles. As 

 far as Alford, which is practically the upper half of the river, 

 the channel is carved out through steep and often well-wooded 

 hills, the character being that of a Highland river. A few 

 miles below Alford this gives place to a gentler, and presently 

 to a flat, surrounding, and the river, by the time Inverurie is 

 reached, winds through meadow land with earthy banks. At 

 Kintore and for several miles further on, the Don is like a river 

 in some fertile English county ; the margins of the river are 

 weedy, and sedge-grown islands occur here and there, where 

 water-hens and coots bob about. At times old river channels 



126 



