THE DEE OF KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE 249 



shoulder of the fisherman. It wants strength, skill, and practice 

 to use it well, but in expert hands it is deadly. The most favourable 

 time is when there is a run of grilse with a moderately small water ; 

 but the large hauls only last a few nights, as if the water falls the 

 run of fish ceases, while if it increases and becomes really big the 

 shoulder net cannot be used. Although, perhaps, this method 

 of fishing does not do quite so much harm as is supposed, it is 

 nevertheless a villainous poaching method of fishing which should 

 not be permitted in any river. 



Up till about 1870 there was a famous shoulder-net fisherman, 

 one Richardson, who kept a book in which he entered all the fish he 

 caught. Besides his regular wages, he got a penny extra for every 

 salmon and a halfpenny for every grilse, and in four of his best 

 years his book shows he took in — 



Salmon. Grilse. 



1838 

 1840 

 1842 

 1843 



3300 23.369 



With reference to these figures, the owner of the Doachs or 

 cruives at Tongueland, three miles above Kirkcudbright, denies 

 their accuracy, and maintains that these fish were not taken by 

 Richardson alone, but in conjunction with others, sharing the 

 captures and using other kinds of nets than the shoulder-net. This 

 is probably the correct solution of these scores, which, even then, 

 are astonishingly large : but it must not be overlooked that sixty 

 years ago the tendency was to brag of big hauls and exaggerate them, 

 while now everything is done to conceal such events. 



The lower parts of the Dee are fished hard by net and coble, 

 but not by so many nets as formerly, because one tacksman now 

 has the whole fishing, and the fish can consequently be taken with 

 fewer nets than when several parties worked it, which gave rise to 

 great competition. About the same number of fish are got, but 

 the river is not worried so much. 



The fish that enter the Dee having thus escaped the nets and 

 cobles, the yairs and the shoulder-nets, have j-et a fourth peril to 

 pass ere there remains no other danger to face than the chance of 

 being taken by the rod or sneaked by a poacher. lahude to the Doachs 

 at Tongueland, loudly complained of by the upper proprietors as 

 capturing the majority of the fish that have escaped the other 

 devices and are making their way to the upper waters. These 

 Doachs are the property of Mr. Murray Stewart, who claims to hold 

 them by ancient and special rights, exempting him from the opera- 

 tion of the by-laws regulating the construction and use of cruives 

 and mill dams ; and, as will be seen from the illustration, they are 

 partly natural and partly artificial, practically forming a cruive 

 dyke which gives the owner the power of capturing the majority of 



