of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
7 
13, and the Sliee of 15 miles. The former, for several miles above 
the junction, abounds in fine gravelly spawning-ground, and has several 
good pools suitable for salmon, if they could only be enabled to reach 
them. The Shee is a much more rapid stream than the Ardle, and its 
bed is more rocky. It falls nearly 700 feet in 15 miles. It abounds, 
however, in splendid pools and streams. But at Netherton Bridge there 
is a dam connected with a wool mill, which forms a most serious obstruc- 
tion, 9 feet perpendicular, which no salmon could surmount. There is no 
fish-pass. 
It is stated by several persons well qualified to judge that, owing to a Junction of 
change in the stream of the Tay close to its junction with the Isla, caused ^ay am * ^ sla - 
by the erection of a croy on the right bank of the Tay, where there is at 
present a ferry, salmon do not take the Isla so freely and readily as they 
used to do. At the junction the Isla is dead water, almost without a 
current, whereas there is a strong current in the Tay, which proves more 
attractive to the fish than the dead water in the Isla. If this be the case, 
unless a change can be effected by removing the croy, the proposed 
restoration of the salmon-fishings in the Ericht below the Keith, and the 
bringing salmon up into the Shee and Ardle, will be greatly increased in 
difficulty, as the Ericht is a tributary of the Isla, and all salmon reaching 
it must of course first pass through the Isla. 
A few miles from Blairgowrie there is a very objectionable artificial Obstructions 
obstruction on the small river Lunan, which I saw and examined in the on the Lunan. 
course of my inspection, and which was complained of by various persons 
in the neighbourhood as entirely preventing the ascent of salmon to 
several lochs belonging to the basin of the Lunan. 
The Lunan has a course of 15 miles, and flows into the Isla about 3 
miles above the junction of that river with the Tay. The dam in question 
is situated only 2 miles above the point where the Lunan joins the Isla. 
It is of considerable height, with a long face or apron, and has no fish- 
pass. At present it is an absolute obstruction. Above it there is a long 
series of lochs, containing only pike, perch, and trout ; but if this dam 
were made passable, salmon would have access to the whole of them, 
which would immensely increase the value of the fishings. These lochs 
together cover an area of at least 500 acres. Their names are as follows : 
— Loch Drummellie, Loch of Cluny, Loch of Butterstone, Loch of the 
Lows, and Loch Craignish. It would not be very difficult or expensive 
to make this dam passable by building a subsidiary dam across the narrow 
channel of the stream a little way below the main dam, and placing a 
diagonal plank or board along the apron of the main dam. But I was 
informed by Mr Anderson of Blairgowrie that the Lunan above the dam 
does not bring down gravel when in flood. And if this be the case, it 
occurred to me that the utterly inefficient Macdonald fish way at Westfield, 
which is choked up with gravel and so rendered useless whenever the 
Ericht is in flood, might be removed and applied to the dam on the 
Lunan, of course with the permission and consent of the Tay District 
Board. 
On the 11th of June last I commenced my inspection of Loch Venachar, Inspection 
Loch Achray, and Loch Katrine, and their connecting and tributary °f Loch 
streams. Venachar, 
Before the erection of the Glasgow "Water Works Embankment and and^ch 1 ^' 
Sluices at the outlet of the Teith from Loch Venachar, salmon had free Katrine, 
access into the loch, and the Coilantogle Eord, immortalised by Sir 
Walter Scott, was immediately below the efflux of the river from the lake. 
