4 



Appendices to Twenty -seventh Annual Report 



are well-marked grilse rivers. It is quite possible that grilse after 

 visiting one river may subsequently, as adult salmon, enter other 

 rivers, and that this goes on more freely than is supposed. For 

 instance, the Ness and the Beauly have a common estuary, the 

 mouths of the rivers being about ten miles apart. The Ness never 

 holds many grilse ; its spring fish are of the large class, and the great 

 majority of its fish at all seasons are large fish. The Beauly, on the 

 other hand, has always been pre-eminently a grilse river ; large fish 

 such as are commonly caught in the Ness are scarce. When one 

 turns to our marking results, one is struck with the fact that quite a 

 fair number of grilse marked after spawning in the Deveron have 

 been recaptured on the coast of Aberdeenshire, having left the 

 Moray Firth entirely. The chart given in Appendix II. to the 

 present report, p. 39, shows these recaptures. No doubt quite a 

 number of grilse have also been recaptured in the river in which 

 they were marked. The number of wandering grilse is, however, 

 significant, and more marking of grilse may enable us to see a little 

 further along this line. 



We have, then, the special features of the grilse which have been 

 indicated. It is desirable further to ascertain more precisely how 

 many grilse are taken for every salmon in the districts for which 

 particulars are available, and this in spite of the fact that grilse are 

 only caught for half the season. I am indebted to Mr. Fraser of this 

 office for kindly going through the figures I have collected, and noting 

 the number of grilse as compared with the number of salmon. I 

 shall refer first to fisheries of the East Coast, commencing with the 

 Tweed, then to more northerly fishings, and finally to the bag-net 

 fisheries of the Pentland Firth and West Sutherland. 



In the Tweed we deal with large takes of fish. The returns here 

 referred to, however, only deal with the fisheries at Berwick. In 

 41 years there are 13 years in which the catch of salmon exceeded 

 the catch of grilse. The period is 1860 to 1900 inclusive. I am 

 unable to estimate the condition since 1900, but it is rather striking 

 that in the last nine years referred to, six of them have produced 

 fewer grilse than salmon. In the returns of the Aberdeen Harbour 

 Commission (1872 to 1908) the grilse total falls below the salmon 

 total on only nine occasions in 37 years, and in the period common 

 to both returns (1872-1900) the Dee has six years of grilse deficiency, 

 as compared with 12 in the Tweed, and only in one year do these 

 j^ears not correspond. In the period of the Dee's greatest prosperity 

 — 1881-1896 — the high totals are attributable to the grilse catch. 

 The actual totals in quinquennial averages during this common 

 period are : — 



Tweed. Dee. 







Salmon. 



Grilse. 



Salmon. 



Grilse. 



1872- 



-1876 , 



,.. 8,117 



9,743 



5,023 



6,649 



1877- 



-1881 



... 5,751 



7,286 



4,935 



7,036 



1882- 



-1886 , 



,.. 7,741 



8.505 



5,961 



10,422 



1887- 



-1891 , 



,.. 7,209 



9,079 



7,036 



11.616 



1892- 



-1896 



... 7,993 



8,545 



7,533 



9,476 



1897- 



-1900 



... 6,291 



6,530 



3,968 



5,532 



(4 years) 



