CHAPTER XII. 



THE RIVER NAIRN. 



ANGLING SEASON : llth February to 31st October. 

 NETTING SEASON : llth February to 26th August. 



District Fishery Board sits in Nairn. Clerk, H. T. Donaldson, Esq., Solicitor, Nairn. 



THIS little alder-skirted river rises to the west of Glenmazeran 

 Forest, in Inverness-shire, and after finding its way down to the 

 lower ground between this point and Loch Ness, not more than about 

 two miles from the upper reaches of the Farigaig, and presently, 

 about the same distance from Loch Ruthven of modern trouting 

 fame, it settles down to a course almost directly north-east to the 

 sea at Nairn. It is a beautiful river, fringed with trees rather too 

 much fringed with trees for the angler throughout almost its whole 

 length. It is, moreover, a river of much splendid spawning ground, 

 for the bed of the stream is gravel at almost all points, and frequently 

 the current is uniform and the water not very deep. 



The stock of fish is, unfortunately, not what it might be. The 

 estuary is no doubt only an imaginary arc of a circle 400 yards 

 radius from the mouth of the river, and many fixed nets are fished 

 outside though their number may in future be slightly diminished ; 

 but I believe the real trouble is the number of weirs which are 

 thrown across the river, and which form especially one or two of 

 those in the lower waters obstructions to the natural ascent of 

 salmon to the spawning grounds above ; while the mouth of the 

 river at Nairn Harbour, where fish naturally congregate before 

 making, or attempting to make, the ascent, is rather seriously 

 polluted at the very time fish chiefly seek to run. 



The town of Nairn, with its adjoining golf links, is visited by 

 great numbers of people in summer and autumn. There is a sewage 

 farm on flat, stony ground across the river from the town, but it is 

 unable to treat the great amount of sewage run on to it, and in addition 

 to this the waste products of a distillery are or were mixed with the 



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