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Part III — Eighteenth Annual Report 



considerable time in the net before it is hauled, and a proportion of the 

 eggs are discharged and no doubt fertilised, There is not so much 

 spawn intermingled with the fish in the catches from the trammel boats 

 as there is from the seine boats. 



To what extent the loss of spawn at Ballantrae Bank or the dis- 

 turbance of the shoals may have proved detrimental to the permanence 

 of the fishery from season to season, it is not easy to decide. If it could 

 be clearly shown that this spawning ground for the herring was in close 

 relationship to important herring fisheries at other parts of the coast, 

 as in Loch Fyne, and that the fishery there exercised an injurious effect 

 on the more important fisheries, there might be reasonable grounds for 

 interference on this score. But the evidence on either point is not con- 

 vincing. It is generally agreed that the large herrings which are known 

 to leave Loch Fyne towards the close of the season do not spawn at 

 Ballantrae Bank. On the other hand, it is very widely held that the 

 mixed and smaller class of herrings that leave Loch Fyne in many 

 seasons pass over to the northern part of the coast of Ayrshire, give 

 rise to the winter fishing there, and then pass on to Ballantrae Bank ; 

 and that after spawning the herrings return to Loch Fyne by way of 

 . the Sound of Kilbrennan. But in some seasons the bulk of the herrings 

 from Loch Fyne pass down by the Sound of Kilbrennan, and the rela- 

 tion of these movements to the Ballantrae fishing is not clear. On the 

 other hand, the herring shoals are sometimes first found coming to Bal- 

 lantrae from the south by way of Loch Byan, and it is quite possible 

 that they may comfe from off the Irish coast, which is considerably 

 nearer than is Loch Fyne. Experiments on the point were made by 

 marking and then liberating many hundreds of herrings, both at 

 Ballantrae and in Loch Fyne and the Sound of Kilbrennan, but only 

 two of the marked fish are known to have been recovered, and they 

 throw no light on the problem. 



Conclusion. 



With regard to the destructive action of the seine net in the capture 

 of immature herrings, there is no doubt that this net from its mode 

 of working may take considerable quantities of small herrings that 

 would escape capture by the drift net or the trammel net, and in this 

 respect the seine net might be regarded as destructive. But there is 

 no evidence to show that its action is wasteful or injurious to the per- 

 manence of the supply of herrings in Loch Fyne. The contrary is 

 indicated by the statistics of the fishery, which prove that, while the use 

 of the seine net has increased, the supply has not only not diminished 

 but has been augmented. The capture of immature fish is incidental to 

 all modes of fishing, whether by net, line, or trawl. There is no 

 fishery in which the fluctuations are more marked than in the herring 

 fishery ; there is none pursued so extensively, and yet the permanence 

 of the supply over a period has been well established. 



With regard to the winter fishery at Ballantrae Bank, the conditions 

 are very different from what they are in Loch Fyne. The area of the 

 Bank proper is limited ; the water is comparatively shallow, and the 

 bulk of the herrings are captured while spawning. In Loch Fyne the 

 water is deep, and the fishing operations, unless when conducted close 

 to the shore, are confined to the stratum near the surface, and the 

 fishery is not for spawning fish. The seine net, when used at Ballantrae 

 Bank, extends from the surface to the bottom and encloses everything that 

 comes within its reach, and there is little doubt that it is in the power of 

 ^eine-net fishei men to sweep this limited area almost clean of herrings 



