CHAPTEK XXXII. 



THE EIVERS NITH AND ANNAN. 



THE NITH. 



ANGLING SEASON : 25th February to 14th November. 

 NETTING SEASON : 25th February to 9th September. 



District Fishery Board meets in Dumfries. C. Stewart Phyn, Esq., 

 Procurator-Fiscal, Dumfries, is Clerk. 



THE Nith is a river of very considerable volume. It does not rank 

 with the largest rivers of Scotland, nor with the salmon rivers of 

 even second rank, but that is not the fault of the Nith. The 

 natural features of the country through which it flows are such as 

 go to the making of a beautiful river which should produce valuable 

 salmon fishing. 



Unhappily, the fisheries here have been allowed to sink to a very 

 low ebb. Many things have combined to bring about this state of 

 matters, the chief of which I will refer to presently ; but the broad 

 fact is, I fear, that the interests of the fisheries have not been 

 guarded in the past. All manner of contending or opposing interests 

 have been allowed to spring up, without the usual and very 

 necessary safeguards which would have enabled at least a much 

 larger proportion of fishing-value to remain. 



The river rises in Ayrshire as a burn called the Powkelly, a few 

 miles east of Dalmellington on the river Boon. The course takes 

 the form of a wide curve to the east and south, and the river enters 

 the Solway Firth through extensive sandy flats below Dumfries. 

 The total length from source to Scar Point, in the tidal estuary, is 

 55 miles, and the river in its course passes through New Cumnock, 

 Kirkconnel, Sanquhar, and Thornhill, as well as Dumfries. In 

 almost its whole length, the Nith is a river of beautiful character, 

 offering many attractions to the angler; gravelly reaches of good 

 streamy water, long holding pools, here and there an outcrop of rock 



