74 PHYSOSTOMI. 



late fish, as now they are hardly visited by salmon except during the breeding 

 season, due to excessive netting in the lower waters. Spawners will rarely take 

 a fly, and as there are always some clean run fish in the river, this angling can do 

 very little injury* as xiuseasonable ones if hooked have to be returned to the 

 water. 



Means of capture. — The different methods used for taking salmon within the 

 limits of the British Isles may be classed under (1) such as are carried on in 

 the open sea or along the foreshore of the ocean : (2) those in estuaries or tidal 

 portions of rivers : and (3) those in fresh waters above tidal influence. 



I have remarked that salmon roam along the coast in search of food and when 

 doing so swim close in shore, enabling them to be intercepted by means of 

 stationary engines during their journeys, either in the meshes of the stake nets 

 or chambers of the bag net, contrivances illegal in England, Wales, and Ireland, 

 but permitted in Scotland. 



The injury done to fisheries by these erections in Scotland is excessive (they 

 have been properly condemned as nuisances elsewhere) and as examples I take 

 two cases in point from Russell and Bertram. Fixed nets were erected in the 

 Firth of Tay, 1799, and finally declared illegal in 1812. The takes of the two 

 fisheries immediately above the highest of these nets were as follows : — 



Ten years before stake-nets, annual take 10,874 salmon, 2,211 grilse, 

 during „ „ „ „ 6,700 „ 2,429 „ 



„ after „ „ „ „ 11,316 „ 11,220 „ 



The number of boxes of salmon each containing 100 lb. of fish shipped from 

 the River Tay fisheries in 1812, the last year of the fixed nets, was 1175 ; but in 

 1819, after they had been completely removed, 5694. About 1821 they com- 

 menced being used on the open or ocean coast of Forfarshire, and were in effective 

 numbers, about 1825, with the result of reducing the captures in the two Tay 

 fisheries already referred to by one-half. The takes in the fixed engines, which 

 now exist along the coast in numbers, is carved out of the fish which would have 

 pertained to the river fisheries, and due to their existence the produce in two 

 Aberdeenshire rivers was computed to have been reduced by nearly £18,000 a 

 year (Russell, where a full account of these fisheries will be found). Bertram, 

 likewise, informs us of the produce of the Eanfauns fisheries on the Tay, near 

 Perth, for the same period : — 



Average annual capture before stake-nets . . . 8720 salmon, 1714 grilse. 

 ,, ,, ,, for 10 years during ditto 4666 ,, 1616 ,, 



„ 1815 to 1824 .... 9010 „ 8709 „ 



In estuaries and tidal portions of rivers sweep nets or seine nets are employed, 

 mostly by one end to which a rope is attached being fixed or held on shore, while 

 the body of the net being in a boat is rowed round a semi-circle of the stream, 

 and payed out by the boatman. Drift nets can be worked down the centre of the 

 stream, or round bushes, or from both banks if the river is sufficiently narrow, 

 but for the various modes of capture the reader must refer to the introduction. 

 Even here angling is occasionally successful, and a few years since a boy fishing 

 with a worm in the Severn, at Upper Parting, a short distance above Gloucester, 

 took a 10 lb. salmon. Live bait has likewise been successfully employed within 

 tidal influence, and even the artificial fly. 



In the fresh waters above tidal influence these fish may be taken by fixed 

 engines, nets, angling, or poaching devices, while dogs have even been trained 

 to assist fishermen in their avocations. It will be impossible here to enter upon 

 the various modes in which fly-fishing for this the "king of fresh water fishes " 

 is carried on. How the tyro is warned to be careful not to strike too soon, but 

 when he does to do so with no uncertain stroke, with the pros and cons as to whether 

 to employ a gaff or a landing net, and how to wade, fish from a boat, or a coracle. 



* It has been observed (Eden, Fortnightly Review) that taking nine rivers in 1880, those who 

 bred the fish took 1237, those who netted them 52,563. In the Sevei'n rods captured 15 fish and 

 nets 16,000, including the estuary. While in the Field (Nov. 5th, 1881) it is asserted that up to 

 November 1st not a single fish had been taken with the rod throughout the season, between the 

 tideway and Shrewsbury. 



