CHAPTER XXX. 



THE AYE, BOON, GIRVAN, AND STINCHAR DISTRICTS. 



RIVER AYR. 



ANGLING SEASON : llth February to 31st October. 

 NETTING SEASON : llth February to 26th August. 



There is a District Fishery Board. 

 Clerk, Wilfred C. Macrorie, Esq., Solicitor, Ayr. 



THE Ayr and its tributaries drains an area of no less than 220 square 

 miles, and is a river of very considerable size. In the matter of 

 salmon fisheries it is much better than it was, but has not yet reached 

 the position it might occupy amongst rivers. In the past it has 

 suffered from hard netting, coupled with pollutions and the presence 

 of dam-dykes unprovided with salmon passes. Of late years all the 

 netting, whether in river or on the coast, right of which goes with 

 Auchincruive, has been suspended, pollution has been diminished, 

 and certain dykes have been provided with passes. As a result, the 

 river is distinctly on the up grade. It is a populous and a sporting 

 district, however, and in certain sections of it the laxity of protection, 

 which prevailed in the past, is still reflected in the freedom with 

 which unauthorised fishers practise their art by curious methods and 

 at strange times. 



The river has its source in small hill burns a short distance east 

 of Muirkirk, close to the divide where the Douglas Water rises to 

 flow away north-east to the Clyde above Lanark. It is a dreary, 

 wind-swept country this region of the county march between Ayr and 

 Lanark. The Ponesk Burn, which rises from Priesthill Height, is 

 the highest source, and from here to the sea, by the course of the 

 Ayr, is about 36 miles. The Greenoch Water, the highest tributary 

 of any size, rises a short distance to the north, and joins the Ayr 

 about half-way between Muirkirk and Sorn. The romance of this 

 dreary district lies in the many memories of the Covenanters who 



