252 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



on a lease of 14 years to a syndicate of six anglers. The 

 syndicate had a right of netting in the river but did not exercise 

 it, and no netting has been carried on since. When the 

 syndicate gave up the river it was taken by Mr. Pople, then 

 tenant of the Grimersta fishings in the Lewis. Mr. Pople, 

 however, gave up the Thurso in 1907, and now Sir Archibald 

 Sinclair, Bart., has the whole district in his management. 



Nothing has occurred in recent times in the fresh water to 

 injure the river in any serious way, although the sewage of 

 Thurso, including the effluent from a gas work, and sheep 

 washings may have had some influence. 



What then, it may be asked, had been going on in the sea 

 near the river ? The coast line of the Thurso district is about 

 30 miles long, and extends from Duncansby Head to Brims 

 Ness. The estuary of the river, i.e. the artificially delimited 

 area in which fixed nets of any description may not be set, is 

 small, being " A portion of a circle 400 yards radius to be 

 drawn from a centre placed mid-channel at the time of low 

 water of equinoctial spring tides, and continued to the shore at 

 high-water by tangents, that on the east being to a point 500 

 yards north-east of Thurso Castle, and that on the west being 

 in the direction of the toll-house." l 



I am unable to determine when bag nets were first set on the 

 Thurso coast, but it was almost certainly long before the period 

 during which rod fishing records are available for comparison. 

 The first stake net set in Scotland, i.e. the net from which fly 

 nets and bag nets were gradually developed, was in 1821 on the 

 coast of Forfarshire, from which point the practice of fixed net 

 fishing spread north and south. But certain old fixed nets 

 were already in use in the Solway, and appear to have arisen 

 independently. A stake net is still fished on the Forfarshire 

 coast. 



So far as I can estimate, when the estuary of the Thurso was 

 fixed in 1868 only about a score of nets were on the coast in 

 the neighbourhood. The fact of importance in the present 

 connection is that as facilities for sending fish to market 

 increased, and salmon fisheries became more valuable, the 

 number of nets increased till about the year 1900 when there 

 were 46, including some nets set in Thurso Bay not far from 

 1 Schedule B, Salmon Fisheries (Scot.) Act, 1868. 



