THE SOLWAY DEE 401 



all persons whatsoever to take any salmon in that space so that 

 at the day appointed, if it have been a dry season, there is to be had 

 excellent pastime; the said Vicecount with his friends and a 

 multitude of other people coming thither to the fishing of salmon 

 which being enclosed in pooles and places among the Kocks, men go 

 in and catch in great abundance with their hands, speares, listers, 

 etc., yea, and with their very dogs." 



Another curious practice which, however, is still carried on at the 

 Doachs is the fishing of the shoulder net. This engine is like a 

 gigantic shrimp-net or landing-net, fitted to a pole 24 feet long. 

 The netting is about 6 feet deep, and is suspended from an iron 

 rim of a rough semi-circular shape measuring about 5 ft. X 7 ft. 

 3 ins., the greater measurement being transverse. The net is 

 balanced on the right shoulder of the fisherman, the handle or pole 

 resting on a wooden cranse or slipper strapped to the shoulder ; 

 the mouth is turned downwards, and the bag of the net gathered at 

 the base of the pole. With the contrivance in this position the 

 fisherman who has to be a man of some strength sallies forth 

 along the rocks after dark. Approaching, let us say, his favourite 

 little pool, called the Black Pot, he throws the net as a man does a 

 spear, and immediately presses downwards on the handle, dragging 

 the net towards him, and at the same time swinging it so as to 

 search all the corners of the pool. I have watched the operation on 

 a fine summer night, and the scene is not without a certain fascina- 

 tion. The moving figures, the constant rush of the water over the 

 rocks, the blackness of the shadows, the tall trees and the old mill 

 blend beautifully; while the silvery fish splashing in the net as they 

 are lifted or dragged out, echo the play of the moon on the water ; 

 but the whole is to my mind grievously marred by the feeling 

 that the business comes so very near to the old and equally 

 picturesque leistering, now done away with. I shouldn't mind 

 seeing Indians spearing the spawning fish in the creek of some 

 Pacific coast river where the fish are in countless thousands, 

 but to bale fish out of rocky pools in a Scottish river, where 

 salmon are all too scarce, seems to me a most improvident sort of 

 operation. It will be noticed that neither Doachs nor the shoulder 

 net are expressly referred to in the quotation given above. 



The Doachs of Tongueland have been the subject of a good deal 

 of litigation. The late Mr. Archibald Young, when Inspector of 

 Salmon Fisheries, referred to the matter in the following way 1 



1 Second Annual Report Fishery Board for Scotland, Appen. p. 109. 



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