CHAPTER IV. 



RIVERS NORTH ESK AND SOUTH ESK. 



ANGLING SEASON : February 16th to October 31st. 

 NETTING SEASON : February 16th to August 31st. 



The District Fishery Board of each river sits in Montrose. 



Clerk for North Esk : J. R. Findlay, Solicitor, Montrose. 

 Clerk for South Esk : D. S. Campbell, Solicitor Montrose. 



THESE two Forfarshire rivers have great possibilities in their yield 

 of salmon at all seasons of the year. The coast in the immediate 

 neighbourhood is more heavily netted than any part of Scotland. 

 The estuaries are not large, and nets are therefore allowed fairly 

 close to the river mouths. Yet the salmon are, and have been for 

 many years, a rich harvest, although a decided decrease is alleged. 



Both rivers have in the past been much obstructed by the 

 erection of dam dykes, but for the most part these have now been 

 modified for the benefit of ascending fish. At their sources each 

 river springs from high country of rather Highland character, but 

 each in the greater part of its course flows through undulating 

 pastoral and cultivated land, often richly wooded. Long stretches 

 of beautiful spawning ground exist; at other parts the water is 

 sluggish, the banks overgrown with a tangle of vegetation, and the 

 bottom inclined to be muddy. The latter conditions are frequently 

 brought about or accentuated by the dam dykes being placed where 

 the natural gradient of the river is slight. Of the two the South 

 Esk is the more prone to this characteristic, and in its course it is 

 flatter and more given to winding. 



RIVER NORTH ESK. 



The mouth of this river is three miles north of Montrose in an open 

 sandy bay. Large sand dunes are piled up all along the shore above 



