CHAPTER XXVIII 

 RIVERS OF THE CLYDE AREA 



LEVEN AND LOCH LOMOND, ECHAIG AND LOCH ECK, 

 AND RUEL. 



THE CLYDE AND LOCH LOMOND DISTRICT 



ANGLING SEASON: llth February to 31st October. 

 NETTING SEASON : llth February to 26th August. 



In the Schedule of the Salmon Fishery Act of 1868 there is 

 no District denned for Loch Lomond. The District is that of 

 the river Clyde, and Loch Lomond is a part thereof. Since 

 the early 'sixties of last century, however, the Clyde has ceased 

 to be a salmon river owing to the pollution poured into it from 

 Glasgow. One states the cause of the absence of salmon in 

 this case without any hesitation, yet if one were asked to prove 

 it one would have great difficulty. There are statements 

 showing, for instance, what Richard Franck in 1658 described 

 as the " multiplicity of salmon in the Clyde," one of the three 

 " fair imbellishments of Glasgow," indeed it is on record that 

 salmon netting was practised at Glasgow by a society of fishers 

 founded as far back as 1201, but we have no record, so far as I 

 am aware, showing how, with the rise of population and manu- 

 facture, and ergo of pollution, the famous salmon fisheries of 

 Clyde declined and died. Yet everyone knows it has been 

 almost impossible for any self-respecting salmon to inhabit the 

 Clyde below the Broomielaw while the entire pollutions of the 

 " second city of the Empire " were poured into it. 1 



1 The last records of salmon at Glasgow seem to be dated 1871. 

 Mr. M'Creath, who knows the Bothwell Castle and Blantyre water well, 

 tells me that in 1 880 salmon were still fished for there, and that even 

 at the present day one or two are sometimes seen. 



373 



