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Appendices to Second Annual Report 



of the Nith, licensed to fish for white fish, but which must 

 and do catch salmon, to the great detriment of those proprietors 

 who have a title to salmon fishings in the district of the Nith. 

 I find, on comparing the above list with a list for 1880, that there 

 has been an increase of 11 Paidle nets since that year. In 

 that year there were 98, whereas, in 1883, there are 109. These 

 nets have greatly increased since the decision in the case 

 of Neilson v. Fenton, 16 Nov. 1876 — Couper, vol. iii. p. 353— 

 in which it was held that section 9 of the So I way Fisheries Act, 

 1804, prohibiting persons not owners or occupiers of fisheries from 

 taking salmon, &c, without being duly authorised, did not apply to 

 a person holding a licence from a fishing proprietor on the Solway 

 to fish with stake nets for white fish, who, while so fishing, 

 captured and took salmon ; and a conviction of such a person before 

 the Justices of the Peace, under the said section, was accordingly 

 set aside. The Nith District Board state that the effect of this 

 decision has been entirely to paralyse their hands in dealing with 

 the owners of these Paidle nets, who can now, without a shadow 

 of a title to fish for salmon,, capture and appropriate these fish 

 with impunity. The decision in Neilson v. Fenton, was a 

 Justiciary case. It has been suggested that a civil action of 

 declarator and interdict directed against these nets as being fixed 

 engines within an estuary used for the killing of salmon, and used 

 by persons without a vestige of a title to fish for salmon, might 

 yet have the effect of putting a stop to their operation, so far as 

 salmon are concerned. In the Appendix to the Eeport of 1871, 

 on the effect of recent legislation on the Salmon Fisheries in 

 Scotland, drawn up by Mr Buckland and myself, Mr Buckland 

 writes as follows about these Paidle nets in the Nith :• — ' Paidle 

 4 nets are very destructive to salmon. There are, I understand, 

 ' about 40 of them fishing at and about the mouth of the Nith, and 

 ' entail a great deal of watching on the part of the water-bailiffs. 

 ' The plea always given for their use is that they are set for 

 ' flounders, and flounders only. They are covered with a roof of 

 ' netting, so that if a salmon once gets in he cannot get out again. 

 ' Of late years, the leaders to these nets have been made taller and 

 ' taller ; they are now, by my own measurement from 5 to 7 feet 

 ' high ; 3 feet would be quite enough to drive the flounders into the 

 ' nets. Paidle nets should be done away with altogether, as the 

 ' flounder fishing is most insignificant as compared with the 

 ' salmon fishing.' The effect on the salmon fishings of so many 

 ranges of small stake-nets as those above enumerated, fishing 

 within the estuary of the Nith may be imagined, especially when it 

 is taken into consideration that these nets are in fishing order 

 during the weekly close time, and take salmon on Sundays as well 

 as on week days. It should be stated that Lord Herries, who is 

 the owner of the Fishing, on which 89 of these paidle nets are 

 placed, would have no right himself to use fixed engines for the 

 capture of salmon within the estuary of the Eiver Nith, this having 

 been decided in the case M'Whir v. Oswald, 13th April 1835. 



When in the Nith District, I took a boat and carefully inspected 

 a number of these nets at low water. In the pocket of one of 



