of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



66 



failed to prove their complaint that any departure from the ordinary and 

 accustomed mode of net and coble fishing had been followed by James 

 M'Call and others, the defenders, and at a later date the SherifE-Principal 

 adhered. The case was then taken to the Court of Session, when proof 

 was led before the Lord Justice Clerk (Lord Scott Dickson), Lord Salvesen, 

 Lord Guthrie, and Lord Dundas. The result was a unanimous decision 

 in favour of the pursuers, their lordships finding that the method em- 

 ployed is not fair net and coble fishing, and is illegal in respect that during 

 the period when the paying out of the net is prevented, and the coble kept 

 close to the Dumfries side, the net takes a grasp of the whole width of the 

 river during a longer time than is required for the coble to row round the 

 net, and is a contrivance which prevents the free passage of fish up the river. 

 Declarator and interdict in terms of the initial writ as amended were 

 therefore granted. 



The decision is one of considerable importance, and should establish 

 without ambiguity the difference between legal and illegal methods of 

 net and coble fishing in rivers and estuaries of Scotland. Their lordships 

 found, in fact, that the coble was rowed straight across to the opposite 

 bank, the net paying itself out during the passage of the boat ; that the 

 man in the coble then put his foot on the net so as to prevent further paying 

 out, and rowed the coble down stream, keeping the bow close to the bank, 

 while the man with the tow rope walking on the side from which the shot 

 had started drew his end of the net correspondingly down stream. When 

 the coble reached a point nearly opposite the hauling place, the man in 

 it released the net, rowed back to the side of the river from which he had 

 originally started, and the net was hauled ashore. 



In the past when a long and uniform stretch of water was netted, 

 this method of embracing more water than could be grasped by an un- 

 interrupted paying out of the net and rowing round of the coble has been 

 far from uncommon. In such a stretch of water where two or more shots 

 could have been rowed, the easier process of running the net across at the 

 top and then stopping it or " stenting " it for such time as enabled the 

 barrier of net to be drifted down the whole of the stretch and the shot 

 only rowed out at the bottom, has readily, and perhaps naturally, presented 

 iself. Any fish in the long stretch of water could thus be swept down to 

 the tail of the pool, and only there encircled. 



In future. District Fishery Boards will be empowered to enforce the 

 rowing out of each shot " during such time only as is required for the boat 

 to row round the net." 



At a time when fish are running, the decision now arrived at will 

 make a considerable difference. A barrier of netting stretched across 

 and slowly drifting down a long pool, is calculated to turn any fish, whereas 

 two or more separate shots gives a certain interval, and allows more room 

 for the fish to escape the net. There is here a nearer approach to the 

 desirable conditions of netting, in the general interests of the fisheries, 

 without in any way acting against the satisfactory and perfectly legitimate 

 netting of the water. A proportion of every run of fish should be allowed 

 to pass the netted zone in any river, and in places where the netting is 

 carried on immediately below, or a short distance below, an obstruction 

 to the ascent of fish in the form of a weir, the regulation of the method of 

 netting has to be more carefully guarded. The decision will, I hope, do 

 away with the open abuse I have occasionally witnessed, when the man 

 rowing the shot has not only stopped at the opposite bank, but has got out 

 of his coble to engage in a convenient conversation with a friend, the 

 gentle force of the low river admitting of the net remaining for a very 

 considerable time as a complete barrier across the pool. 



