of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



Ill 



clean out the bye-wash, and to repair the existing apparatus for 

 preventing the passage of smolts into the irrigation lade. I hope, 

 therefore, that the spawning capabilities of the Dilldawn Burn may- 

 yet be made available. 



The present assessable value of the salmon fishings in the Dee 

 district is £1200 a year, and the assessment levied on this by the 

 District Board for the protection of the fisheries is £5 per cent. 



I now proceed to describe the three rivers flowing into Wigtown 

 Bay — the Fleet, the Cree, and the Bladenoch. 



The Fleet 



This is a small river with a large estuary called Fleet Bay, which 

 joins Wigtown Bay. It is formed by two branches — the big and the 

 little water of Fleet — and has a drainage area of 3 6 J square miles. 

 It is more of a sea-trout than of a salmon river, and is very late ; 

 the sea-trout first making their appearance in June, and the run of 

 salmon being still later. Mr Murray Stewart is the proprietor of 

 the fishings on the Fleet. When the Solway Commissioners were 

 engaged in prosecuting their investigations into the fixed nets on 

 the Solway under the Act of 1877, there were three fixed nets with 

 six pockets used for the capture of salmon in the district of the Fleet, 

 and one engine was claimed as privileged and a general claim made 

 for others. The Commissioners, however, ordered three engines 

 with six pockets situated near Carrick Point, Craigmore Point, 

 and at a place between Aird's Bay and Tupstones, to be abated and 

 removed ; at the same time certifying one fixed engine with one 

 pocket as privileged. 



The Cree. 



The Cree rises in Loch Moan on the confines of Ayrshire 

 and Kirkcudbrightshire, runs south-east between the counties of 

 Wigtown and Kirkcudbright, and falls into the head of 

 Wigtown Bay. It has a rather long and wide estuary ; a course 

 of more than 20 miles from its source to the town of 

 Newton-Stewart, near the head of the estuary ; and a drain- 

 age area of 173 square miles. Its chief* tributary is the Min- 

 nock, whose head-waters are not far from the source of the 

 Stinchar in Ayrshire. The Minnock, as an angling and spawning 

 stream, is far superior to the Cree ; and at the point of junction it 

 is the larger river of the two. There is a considerable lake called 

 Loch Trool, which is one of the principal feeders of the Minnock. 

 It is two miles long, about a quarter of a mile wide, and covers 320 

 acres. In some places it is from 70 to 80 feet deep. The outlet 

 of the loch is through a narrow gorge, from 17 to 20 feet wide. 

 When MrBuckland and I visited Loch Trool in 1870, we approved 

 of a plan for putting on a sluice near the outlet, so as to heighten 

 the surface of the loch and to supply the means of letting down an 

 artificial spate in dry weather when the river was too low to induce 

 fish to run. We suggested that the artificial spate should be let 

 down on the Saturday, so as to give fish wishing to ascend the 

 benefit of the weekly close time, and that the sluice should be 

 opened so that the spate should meet the flood tide. This has now 



