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Appendices to Second Annual Report 



Crown ; and a lessee of such fishings, who has had a long and 

 extensive experience of many different stations, expressed to me 

 his opinion that these fishings were too much divided, and that it 

 would be a great improvement to unite several of them into one 

 large fishing let to a single tenant, who could then fish it with 

 fewer boats, nets, and men than would be required with the fishing 

 divided into several smaller fisheries let to separate tenants. * It 

 ' is no use,' he writes in a letter he has printed on the subject, 

 ' in any man to hope to do good as long as the present state of 

 ' things exists. I would propose that the following fishings be let 

 ' as one, — Carleton, Ardmillan, Bennan, Dahone, and Red Burn. 

 ' With these named let together, Carleton could be fished with 8 



* or 10 nets, 1 boat, and 3 men. At present, there are 4 boats, 12 

 ' men, and about 30 nets. If there were less fish, there would be 



* less expense and fewer nets, and it would give a chance for fish, 

 ' to get some playground when seeking the rivers that reared and 

 ' gave them protection.' 



In conclusion, I may state that the number of mill-lades I have 

 seen during my inspection of the Solway and Ayrshire rivers, 

 without any hecks at the intake or tail-lades to prevent the entrance 

 of salmon, induces me to recommend that, in any future enactment, 

 a clause should be inserted prohibiting fishing for salmon in any lade 

 connected with any mill or manufactory by any net, engine, or 

 device, under a penalty of £5 for each offence, and the forfeiture of 

 the net, engine, or device used in such fishing. It is well known 

 that there is a great deal of poaching in such lades.* 



I may also mention that my inspection of the fixed nets in the 

 Solway Firth, and on the Ayrshire coast, has confirmed the opinion 

 which I expressed in my Eeport on the Salmon Rivers of the 

 East Coast of Scotland, namely, that the weekly close time-f- 

 applicable to stake and fly nets, which occupy the foreshores or 

 space between high and low water mark, should not be a hard and 

 fast period of thirty-six hours, but should be tidal, commencing at 

 the low water nearest in point of time, before or after six o'clock on 

 Saturday night, and terminating at the corresponding low water, 

 before or after six o'clock on Monday morning thereafter, but so 

 that such weekly close time shall always have a duration of at least 

 thirty-six hours, or whatever other period may hereafter be fixed as 

 the weekly close time. Such a tidal close time applicable to the 

 fixed nets in the district of the Tweed has been in operation for 



* As there may possibly be some doubt whether the 6th sub-section of the lf>th 

 section of the Salmon Fisheries Act of 1868, which imposes a penalty on every person 

 who does 'any act for the purpose of preventing salmon from passing through any 

 ' Fish-Pass, or taking any salmon in its passage through the same,' is sufficiently 

 stringent to prevent fishing for salmon, or any other kind of fish, in any Fish-Pass, 

 by net, rod, or any other engine or device whatsoever, there ought to be an absolute 

 prohibition of all fishing in|a Fish-Pass in any future enactment. 



tSee that Report, pp. 51 and 52. 



