of the Fwlwry Board for Scotland. 
21 
' 1871 were for fishing during the open season and taking salmon in their 
{ nets without leave of the proprietor of tho salmon iishings. Every one of 
1 the prosecutions relates to the paidle-nets. The convictions were all for 
' actually taking salmon.' Being asked, c Whether fish of the salmon kind 
' can be caught in the close-time 1 ' Mr Poole answered : — ' 1 can't say what 
' it is in Annan now, but for some time after I first came here you could 
' have got them by the hundredweight at 3d. per pound in the close-time. 
' Both paidle and poke net fishing went on at that time.' John Ferguson, 
Constable in the Cumberland Police Force, who was employed as water- 
bailiff in Annan from 1876 to 1878, states : — ■ I patrolled part of the river 
' Annan and part of Newbie shore from Annan water-foot to Lochar- 
* foot on Mr Beattie's Newbie Fishery. There were paidle-nets there 
' from the Flag-scaur to Newbie, including the Pow-foot Scaur, where 
' the most of them were. John Gilbertson had a net there, just down 
1 nearly opposite the village of Pow-foot, in 1876 and 1877. I saw sea- 
' trout in that net on the 16th of April 1877, and there were two trouts 
' in it on the 10th of May 1877. I saw nine salmon — seven alive and 
' two dead — in "William Coulthard's paidle-net on the 1st of May 
' 1877.' John Forteith, Constable at Glencaple on the Nith, says: — 
f 1 knew that these nets caught salmon j I have very often seen salmon 
' in them — as many as seven in one net.' Walter Thorburn, an In- 
spector in the Dumfries Constabulary, on being asked 'Do you think 
' the name " white fish net " gives a proper description of the paidle- 
'net?' replies: — Salmon-net " is the appropriate description; they 
■ catch both. If the fishers were only allowed to catch white fish, so 
' many of them would not fish at all, because it would not pay any 
' man. Flounders are very scarce in the Solway now, and there are 
■ not many codlings.' Robert Thomson, for a long time foreman to Mr 
Beattie of the Newbie Fishery, says : — ' They (the paidle-nets) have had 
' covers to the pockets ever since I knew them ; they were just the same 
' as salmon nets in that respect. They were suitable for catching salmon 
4 as well as flounders. I have very often caught salmon in them, and 
' more than one at a time. Two was a gey common thing, and we might get 
• three or four, depending on the different tides. I once got seven at one 
' tide in one paidle-net.' Lastly, John Wilson, a fisherman, 76 years of 
age, says on being asked ' Did you catch any salmon with the paidle-nets 1 ' 
' I would not have kept them in unless I could make wages at them, and 
' I would not have got out of bed for all the flounders I got. In former 
' times, the first nights of my fishing I killed a great quantity of flounders, 
' from 18 to 20 stone at a time ; but after the boats came on they destroyed 
; the white fishing. I would not work any at all without the salmon, if 
' I could help it. The salmon would keep me perfectly well without 
' working the time I had my net on ; the flounders would hardly keep 
f the cat ; they are very scarce in the Solway now.' 
The pool-and-jump pass on the Cauld at Dumfries is so close to the Pass on 
bank that anyone could throw a leaded treble hook into it when salmon Dumfries 
are running, though it is, to a certain extent, protected by a wall and Cauld. 
railing. Apart from this objection, it is an efficient ladder; though 
perhaps the pool beneath the lowest jump might advantageously be 
deepened j also a sort of natural channel in the rock, leading from near the 
top of the ladder towards the right bank, might likewise be deepened. 
A complaint was made to me at a meeting of the Nith District Board 
that the lessee of the mill which is supplied with water from the dam 
formed by the Dumfries Cauld is in the habit, whenever there is a lack of 
water for his mill, of putting a board across the cut in the crest of the 
