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Appendices to Second Annual Report 



been carried out by Lord Galloway with satisfactory results. 

 Sluices have been placed at the outlet of the loch, and are so 

 regulated that an artificial supply of water sufficient for angling 

 purposes can be sent down into the river when it would not other- 

 wise be in fishing order. Anglers have thus been enabled to get 

 fish in the river at times when, but for the artificial spate, not a 

 single salmon would have risen to the fly. 



Eleven stake nets, with fourteen pockets, in the Cree district were 

 ordered to be removed by the Solway Commissioners under the 

 Act of 1877. These nets were all within the estuary line for the 

 Cree, Fleet, and Bladenoch fixed by the Scotch Commissioners 

 under the Salmon Fisheries Act of 1862, which stretches across 

 Wigtown Bay from Eggerness Point on the west through the centre 

 of Barlocco Island, and thence to the nearest point of the mainland 

 to the east of that island. There can be little doubt that the 

 removal of these nets, which were placed far too close to the mouth 

 of the Cree, will tend greatly to improve the angling not only in 

 that river but also in the river Bladenoch. 



Complaints were made in the Cree district that the sparling 

 fishery, which forms a considerable industry in the estuary of the 

 Cree and in Wigtown Bay, is so prosecuted as to injure the salmon 

 fishings. The sparlings spawu in March and April at the head 

 of the tideway among the small stones and shingle, but they never 

 go farther up the river than the brackish water extends. They are 

 very small in June and July, but are at their best in September. 

 They are also in good condition and larger in November and 

 December, but are not so plentiful. In these two months they 

 will fetch 2s. per lb., and 8d. per lb. on an average throughout the 

 year. The sparling net is three-quarters of an inch from knot to 

 knot ; and it is alleged that, when fishing in spring, these nets 

 destroy a great many of the salmon smolts that are then on their 

 way to the sea, and that, when fishing in autumn, they likewise 

 capture a good many of the gravid salmon that are ascending to 

 the fresh water for the purpose of spawning. It has been proposed, 

 as a remedy, to have a close time for sparling fishing extending 

 from 1st October to 15th March. 



In the neighbourhood of Penningham House, a few miles above 

 Newton-Stewart, there is a long stretch of dead water in the Cree 

 very much infested with pike, which are also found in considerable 

 numbers in the Penningham Burn, a tributary of the Cree. Their 

 presence is, of course, highly injurious to the salmon fisheries, and 

 some means should be adopted to keep them down. 



During my inspection of the Cree district I visited the Linn of 

 Glencaird, on the Minnock water, which, in certain states of the 

 river, acts as a barrier to the passage of ascending fish. Their 

 ascent might be greatly facilitated, without much expense, by 

 judicious blasting on the left bank next the watchers' house. A 

 round rock near the top of the fall and a jagged rock about the 

 centre of the channel ought both to be removed. There are six 

 miles of angling water above Glencaird Linn, with many good 

 pools and streams ; and below the Linn, and between it and the 

 junction of the Minnock with the Cree — a distance of some three 



