THE NITH 409 



net, being a tapering bag of netting having its mouth stretched on a 

 framework of wood, but the handle being shorter. The net is fished 

 by a man who wades into the water near to the edge of the tidal 

 channel, and there stands with the net set upright and the bag floating 

 out with the current. It is only in the much discoloured waters 

 of these muddy Solway estuaries that the haaf net is likely to be 

 successfully fished, since if the water were clear the salmon would 

 avoid the trap. The tide, however, raises so much fine alluvial 

 matter, that the water becomes " drumlie," and the salmon has to 

 adventure into fresh water in a sort of aqueous fog. If he runs into 

 a haaf net, the fisherman immediately raises his frame and wades 

 out with his prize. 



Very commonly haaf net men arrange to work in company, and 

 form a string of nets at right angles to the direction of the current, 

 the furthest out man being up to the arm-pits in the water. It is 

 a quaint sight to see a file of submerged men out in the water, each 

 as motionless as any heron watching for a passing smolt. When 

 the rising tide threatens to drown out the ultimate man, he lets his 

 net float up and moves to the shallow end. In time the next man 

 comes in, and so on. When the tide turns, they all turn, and face 

 the other way. 



Now, without any doubt, it seems to me, the haaf net is a fixed 

 engine according to the interpretation of that term as regards Scottish 

 salmon fisheries. It is not a net which is caused to move by the 

 hand of the fisherman, or, to use Lord Westbury's accepted expres- 

 sion, which takes a temporary grasp of the water. It is not a net 

 which is set, and left to fish by itself, as an ordinary stake net is, 

 since it is held in position by the fisherman ; but it is a stationary 

 engine set and held in position, in as true a sense as is a toot-and- 

 haul net formerly fished in the Tay estuary, and now disallowed by 

 decision of the House of Lords. Moreover, like a drift net which 

 was simultaneously abolished it is, when fished in conjunction with 

 other similar nets, an obstruction to the passage of fish. In ordinary 

 draught netting or net and coble fishing, such, for instance, as is 

 practised below Dumfries Caul, it is not allowable to drift the net 

 along in the water, or to hang it across the river as a species of 

 barrier to ascending fish. The net must be shot, and pulled in 

 through the water to the bank in such a manner as will preclude 

 the possibility of the net being stationary in the sense of not 

 being caused to move through the water by the fisherman. 



With regard to fixed nets in the Solway, however, in the 33rd 



