80 Appendices to Thirty-stcenth Annual Report 



of regarding the sea as the chief salmon -netting place, and of limiting 

 netting in fresh water so as to allow a proportion of every run of fish 

 to ascend and be secured to the upper waters and for breeding purposes, 

 cannot be established on a sure footing until the various points fixed in 

 rivers, each judged on its own merits, above which netting shall be dis- 

 allowed, obtains statutory sanction. Improvement in the stock of 

 breeding fish, secured by the wise action of a District Fishery Board 

 or body of proprietors, may be vitiated by the selfish but perfectly 

 legitimate action of one person holding a right of fishing. In certain 

 districts also, the dominating power in the District Fishery Board rests so 

 exclusively with one section of fishery proprietors, that much injury* is 

 done to the other section, while the general welfare of the fisheries, which 

 cannot be guarded by the Central Authority, suffers. 



Methods of salmon fishing have become wonderfully stereotyped, so 

 that now, with few exceptions as regards the coasts of Scotland other 

 than the Sol way Firth, the fixed net means the bag net or the fly net, 

 according as the shore is deep or shallow. By the House of Lords decisions 

 in the Tay Hang net and Toot and Haul net cases, netting in fresh waters 

 and estuaries may be said to be only by means of sweep net, i.e. net and 

 coble fishing. In the Solway there still are within the Emits of estuaries 

 certain ancient nets used which would be perfectly illegal elsewhere. 

 I refer to the Yair nets of the Dee estuary, and the Shoulder net fished 

 in several of the rocky pools of the river below Tongland. Whammelling 

 also, i.e. drift net fishing, in the Upper Solway is also a method of fishing 

 which would be illegal in other estuaries in Scotland. It seems highly 

 desirable that a consolidation of the recognised methods of fishing by 

 net be brought about, so that any alterations or proposed alterations 

 may be general in application, and be under control. Much harm has 

 resulted elsewhere for want of this power. 



In the operation of the weekly close time some rather curious anomalies 

 have arisen. In certain districts where netting is severe, fish are unable 

 to pass the belt of nets in the period, or, if they pass the usual belt of 

 nets, the benefit to the river is nullified by the fishing of one or two extra 

 pools higher up the river on the Monday morning. If, as seems abund- 

 antly clear, and as has been provided since the very earliest legislative 

 enactments, a weekly close time is a vital necessity in rivers which are 

 netted, then the close time should be operative and the benefit of it 

 secured to the river. The timiting of the netted zone in fresh water 

 so as to secure a proportion of every run of fish, already referred to, 

 also secures the effective operation of the weekly close time. If such a 

 provision cannot be brought about, it would become necessary to prolong 

 the weekly close time. Further, if a weir should occur in the lower 

 reaches of a river, and the net be used up to the weir, it inevitably 

 happens that during a considerable part of the summer season the fish 

 cannot escape the nets owing to lack of water to ascend the weir. The 

 weekly close time in such cases makes no difference to the interests of 

 any party. As in a notorious case in one river where a channel up which 

 salmon ascend has been permanently closed, the fish simply congregate 

 till it suits the convenience of the netsman to take them out. It is a 

 live box into which the salmon go of themselves. 



The regulations as to erecting fish passes at obstructions, and especially 

 at artificial obstructions, are quite insufficient to allow an adequate 

 ascent of fish, and are in many districts disregarded without the possi- 

 bility of any penalty. In this connection the provision secured in 

 England that no netting shall take place within 50 yards above or 100 

 yards below a weir unprovided with an approved fish pass, seems of 

 great advantage. 



