92 Appendices to Second Annual Report 



5s. 8d. The assessment levied by the District Board has for many 

 years been at the rate of 4s. per £1, except in 1879, when it rose 

 to 6s. per £1. The cost of prosecutions for the six years 1877 to 

 1882, both inclusive, was £321, Is. 5d. and the fines recovered 

 amounted to £259. 



Great complaints were made by the Annan District Board of the 

 whammel or drift net boats, which fish for salmon without a title 

 on the Scotch side of the Sol way Firth ; and also of the sparling 

 nets. In his Report, dated 27th July 1883, Inspector Thorburn 

 writes as follows : — 



' Drift Net Fishing. — There are now 28 boats and nets of this 

 ' description licensed by the Eden District Board to fish for salmon 

 ' in the Solway. There are four or five men appointed to each 

 ' boat, while only one, and never more than two, are required to 

 ' work the boat at one time, so that the boats can be kept 

 ' continually at work by a change of men. 



4 Although these men and nets are licensed to fish in the Eden 

 ' district they fish very little in that district. The most of their 

 ' fishing is done in the low water channel, and in the Scotch side of 

 ' it. This has given a great deal of trouble and annoyance for 

 ' several years, and the great difficulty is that parties who commit 

 c offences in the Annan District in Scotland cannot be prosecuted 

 ' and convicted under the Annan Act. 



' There are also a great number of haaf net fishers on the 

 ' English side, and many of them come through the channel at low 

 1 water and take possession of the Scotch side of the channel. 

 ? These Englishmen defy the men who have a right to fish on the 

 ' Scotch side, and have even taken fish from before their nets, and 

 ' were the Scotchmen to attempt resistance a serious breach of the 

 ' peace would be the result. Many cases of this kind have been 

 ■ reported, but there is no remedy, and, as things are at present, the 

 ' Englishmen have possession of the Scotch half of the channel, 

 ' which is left wholly unprotected.* 



1 Sparling Fishing. — A number of men and boats fish for 

 ' sparlings every year, commencing in the month of August and 

 ' continuing through the winter, unless stopped by hard frost. The 

 ' sparling net is so small in the mesh that it takes the smallest of 

 * fry, and it is used only in the low water channel and mostly 

 ' during the night time. Great numbers of salmon and herling 

 ' are taken in these sparling nets, and although several convictions 

 ' are got every year against the parties who use them, there is great 

 ' slaughter of salmon during the close season which is most difficult 

 ' to get at. If those nets cannot be put out, there should be some 

 ' law to prevent them being used in the low water channel, and 

 ' during the night when they cannot be seen. The sparling fishers 

 ' go out under the pretence of fishing for sparlings, while it is well 

 ' known that all the sparlings that are got in the district would 

 ' not pay the men for one boat, and sometimes there are from six 



* The remedy for this is to repeal the 14tli section of 9 Geo. IV. cap. 39, when 

 the men could be prosecuted under the 25th section of 1 The Salmon Fisheries (Scot- 

 ' land) Act 1868 ;' which section, unfortunately, does not at present apply to thq 

 Solway. 



