18 
Appendices to Tenth Annual Report 
' Torridon, where Diobaig Point and Ru Ardtishlic most nearly approach 
1 each other.' This line is 7 miles within the mouth of Loch Torridon, 
where it contracts to a width of three quarters of a mile, so that the 
fixed nets immediately outside that line intercept the great majority of 
the salmon seeking to ascend the rivers that fall into Loch Torridon. Mr 
Darroch states that this estuary line was fixed in the absence of the 
river proprietors, that its effect has been ' to deliver over the gate 
' leading to their fisheries to intercepting fixed engines,' and he maintains 
that the natural estuary for Loch Torridon, as any one may see on 
consulting the map, is from Red Point on the north to Ru Uamh 
on the south, or a line about 7 miles outside that fixed by the Com- 
missioners. But the evil is done ; and there is no power under the 
existing Acts to alter and amend estuary lines. Possibly it might 
pay the river proprietors above the present estuary line to lease these 
fixed nets outside the estuary, and work them, in order to repay their 
outlay to some extent, for four days in the week — say . from Monday 
morning until Friday morning — which would leave a three days' 
weekly close-time for the fish to reach the rivers, instead of only 
thirty-six hours as at present, which, it is alleged, is very imperfectly 
observed by the occupiers of the nets in question.* 
Falls on the On the river Balgay, between Loch Damph and Loch Torridon, are 
Balgay. f allSj which 
are at present a most serious impediment to the ascent of 
salmon and sea trout, though they do not constitute a complete barrier. 
It would, however, be neither difficult nor expensive to make them easily 
passable, either on the right or on the left bank. Indeed, it would be 
much more easy and much less costly to make these falls accessible than 
to make any one of the three obstructions on the Amhain Thraill passable 
for salmon. If the operations are to be made on the right bank, the best 
plan would, I think, be to divert the water temporarily to the left bank, 
to blast out the top of the fall on the right bank, make a resting-pool 
between the top of the fall and the pool at the bottom, and widen the 
opening from the pool on the right bank to the pool on the left bank. 
I rather incline to think, however, that the better and cheaper plan 
would be to utilise and take advantage of a sort of natural salmon-ladder 
which goes quite round the falls on the left bank, and which does not 
require much alteration to make it into an efficient fish-pass. Some 
boulders would require to be removed and some resting-pools formed, and, 
in one or two places, a little deepening and widening might be advisable, 
and perhaps a little blasting at the top. But all this might be accom- 
plished for a moderate outlay, to the very great improvement of the salmon 
angling in the district. The Balgay, between the top of the falls and the 
lower extremity of Loch Damph, is only about a quarter of a mile long, and 
it runs through a rocky gorge in which there is a good deal of turbulent 
and broken water, but nothing to stop salmon if they were enabled easily 
to ascend the falls. 
There is a point of some importance in connection with the opening up 
* The evidence given in the case of ' Stuart v. M'Barnet ' conclusively shows what 
a productive river the Balgay was up to at least 1863. George Mackenzie, 83 years 
old, stated that, in the old time, they used to get eight or nine salmon in a night 
poaching, and remembers a new net broken by the weight of the fish in the mouth 
of the river. Fifty salmon were caught on that occasion. William Cameron, 
farmer, lived twenty- six years near the mouth of the Balgay. When he first went 
there, gentlemen used to get six or seven fish a clay with the rod ; now a man may be 
days and get none. Alexander Chisholm, Keeper to Sir John Stuart, said that he 
fished the mouth of the Balgay from 1861 to 1863 with net and coble, and caught as 
many as 400 to 600 salmon, including grilse, in a season. Now from twenty to thirty 
salmon at the outside are caught in the Balgay during a favourable season, and in a 
dry season nothing like that number. 
