of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



369 



Orkney, I am by no means convinced that the statutory restrictions 

 intended to prevent wasteful and improvident modes of fishing, are much 

 attended to on the Lochs of Stenness and Harray t Were they fairly 

 fished and properly protected, they ought to be equal to any lochs in the 

 United Kingdom ; and this is not merely my own opinion, after a pretty 

 extensive acquaintance with these lochs, but that of every angler who has 

 had much experience of them. In his admirable book on The Orkneys 

 and Shetland, published in 1883, Mr Tudor writes as follows of these 

 two great lakes : — 



For years, nets, set lines, and the infernal poaching machine the otter, have 

 been used to such an extent that it is a wonder any trout have been left, but 

 now the Orkneys have been formed into a salmon Fishery District, set lines and 

 otters became illegal, and netting can no longer be carried out with the herring- 

 net mesh, and in the reckless manner hitherto in vogue. In fact, if only the 

 fish can be protected during the spawning season, these two lochs should, for 

 angling, be second to none in Scotland. 



To the same effect Mr Sutherland Grseme of Graemeshall, who has a 

 large estate on the Mainland of Orkney, writes, in answer to my printed 

 queries : — 



I believe that if the lochs of Stenness and Harray were properly looked after 

 and preserved by an angling association, they would be the finest fishing lochs 

 in Scotland, both for sea and loch trout. 



But without a District Board or an Angling Association, what is the use 

 of statutory prohibitions of destructive and unfair modes of fishing? 

 What are laws good for if there is no one to enforce them 1 They are a 

 mere dead letter, not likely to be respected or observed by those whose 

 interest, or fancied interest, it is to break them. 



Mr Heddle, the proprietor of the island of Hoy, an experienced angler, 

 agrees with the views above expressed, and he stated to me when I was 

 in Orkney, that no good has, as yet, resulted from bringing the Orkneys 

 under the operation of the Salmon Fishery Acts of 1862 and 1868. No 

 District Board, no Association of Proprietors has been formed; no prosecu- 

 tions have been instituted — matters go on just as before. With regard to 

 the Lochs of Stenness and Harray, he believes that nothing short of the 

 killing of the spawning fish and extensive ottering could have so much 

 reduced the fishing on such great expanses of water, with such wonderful 

 natural capabilities. Fair fishing would never do it. Twenty-one years 

 ago, his father and he killed so many fish in Stenness in one day that 

 they did not like to take any more. There were between 100 and 200, all 

 good-sized trout. Four years ago he fished the same loch, and got only 

 about half a dozen fish. One of these, however, was 2J lbs. 



Mr Gold, chamberlain to the Earl of Zetland, corroborates these views. 

 He told me that the Acts had done no good as regarded the great lakes of 

 Stenness and Harray, in which poaching was as rife as before the Acts 

 were made to apply to the islands. A clause should be put into an Act 

 of Parliament absolutely prohibiting ottering. Mr Gold is of opinion 

 that the right of salmon fishing, or rather sea-trout fishing, in the lochs 

 of Stenness and Harray belongs to the Earl of Zetland or to the Crown. 

 He maintains that the Harray lairds are not udallers, and that their 

 riparian rights give them a title to yellow-trout fishing only. 



In the autumn of 1880, a public inquiry was held by the Commissioners 

 of Scotch Salmon Fisheries at Kirkwall-, Stromness, and the Bridge of 

 Waithe, in connection with the proposal to erect the Orkney Islands into 

 a Fishery District, and some interesting and important evidence was laid 

 before them about the fisheries in Stenness and Harray, and the sea-trout 

 fisheries in the Orkneys generally. With regard to the size attained by 



