of the Fishery Board for Scotland, 35 
1886, will show what these great lakes have been; what they are j and 
what they might be if properly managed and protected : — 
Before the Orkneys were constituted a Fishery District, and the usual bye- 
laws passed fixing estuaries, a close season, the meshes of nets to be used for 
the capture of fish of the salmon kind, and prohibiting certain methods of 
fishing,* all kinds of destructive and improvident modes of fishing were 
commonly practised on the Loch of Stenness, and more particularly on the 
upper part of it, the Loch of Harray. Set lines, set-nets, sweep-nets, and the 
otter, were in constant operation ; and although the use of the otter and fixed 
nets is now illegal, the ' Harray lairds,' as the small proprietors on the banks 
of the Loch of Harray are called, cannot be prevented, as the law at present 
stands, from using the sweep-net or set lines, as they are udallers, that is free- 
holders, and many of their properties have a frontage to the loch. No District 
Board lias been formed for the Orkneys, nor is there any Angling Association 
for the protection and improvement of the fishings ; and from what I saw and 
heard when in Orkney, I am by no means convinced that the statutory restric- 
tions intended to prevent wasteful and improvident modes of fishing are much 
attended to on the Lochs of Stenness and Harray. Were they fairly fished and 
properly protected, they ought to be equal to any lochs in the United Kingdom; 
and this is not merely my own opinion, after a pretty extensive acquaintance 
with these lochs, but that of every angler who has had much experience of 
them. In his admirable book on the Orkneys and Shetland, published in 1883, 
Mr Tudor writes as follows of these two great lakes : — 
For years, nets, set lines, and the infernal poaching machine the otter, have been used 
to such an extent that it is a wonder any trout have been left, but now the Orkneys have 
been formed into a Salmon Fishery District, set lines and otters became illegal, and 
netting can no longer be carried out with the herring-net mesh, and in the reckless 
manner hitherto in vogne. In fact, if only the fish can be protected during the spawning 
season, these two lochs should, for angling, be second to none in Scotland. 
To the same effect Mr Sutherland Graeme of Graemeshall, who has a large 
estate on the Mainland of Orkney, writes, in answer to my printed queries : — 
I believe that if the lochs of Stenness and Harray were properly looked after and pre", 
served by an Angling Association, they would be the finest fishing lochs in Scotland, 
both for sea and loch trout. 
But without a District Board or an Angling Association, what is the use of 
statutory prohibitions of destructive and unfair modes of fishing 1 What are 
laws good for if there is no one to enforce them 1 They are a mere dead letter, 
not likely to be respected or observed by those whose interest, or fancied 
interest, it is to break them. 
Mr Heddle, the proprietor of the island of Hoy, an experienced angler, agrees 
with the views above expressed, and he stated to me, when I was in Orkney, 
that no good has, as yet, resulted from bringing the Orkneys under the opera- 
tion of the Salmon Fishery Acts of 1862 and 1868. No District Board, no 
Association of Proprietors has been formed, no prosecutions have been instituted 
— matters go on just as before. With regard to the Lochs of Stenness and 
Harray, he believes that nothing short of the killing of the spawning fish and 
extensive ottering could have so much reduced the fishing on such great 
expanses of water, with such wonderful natural capabilities. Fair fishing 
would never do it. Twenty-one years ago, his father and he killed so many 
fish in Stenness in one day that they did not like to take any more. There 
were between 100 and 200, all good-sized trout. Four years ago he fished the 
same loch, and got only about half a dozen fish. One of these, however, was 2^ lbs. 
Mr Gould, chamberlain to the Earl of Zetland, corroborates these views. 
He told me that the Acts had done no good as regarded the great lakes of 
Stenness and Harray, in which poaching was as rife as before the Acts were 
made to apply to the islands. A clause should be put into an Act of Parlia- 
ment absolutely prohibiting ottering. Mr Gould is of opinion that the right 
of salmon fishing, or rather sea-trout fishing, in the Lochs of Stenness and 
Harray belongs to the Earl of Zetland or to the Crown. He maintains that 
the Harrav lairds are not udallers, and that their riparian rights give them a 
title to yellow trout-fishing only. 
In the autumn of 1880, a public inquiry was held If the Commissioners of 
Scotch Salmon Fisheries at Kirkwall, Stromness, and the Bridge of Waithe, in 
connection with the proposal to erect the Orkney Islands into a Fishery 
District, and some interesting and important evidence was laid before them 
* This was done in 1881 and 1882. 
