26 
Appendices to Ninth Annual Report 
Doubtful 
whether Tyne 
is a Salmon or 
a Bull-trout 
River. 
From East 
Linton to 
Tyninghame. 
the stream. Towards the right bank, an attempt has been made to blast 
a sahnon-pass through the rocks, and considerable expense has evidently 
been incurred in doing so. But, after all, the work has been but im- 
perfectly done, and the fall still remains a most serious obstruction. The 
total length of this cut or pass is about 100 feet. Of this, the lower part 
consists of a strong rapid of white foaming water ; then there is a sort of 
resting pool ; then a space of still, dark, deep water ; and then about 20 
yards of another strong, swirling rapid. The pass is too narrow, too 
steep, and has too much water in it. It is only some 5 or 6 feet wide ; 
whereas, if it were twice the width, and the top were carried back 20 
yards and scooped out so as to lessen the gradient, ascending fish would 
have a much better chance. To add to the difficulties of ascending fish, 
there is a pretty steep dam stretching across the river, not more than 100 
yards above the falls. A short subsidiary dam, close to the right bank 
of the river, would make this dam easily passable."^ 
The greatest height of the fall from the top of the rock to the water 
beneath, the water being very low at the time, I found to be 20 feet. The 
pool below the Falls is long, wide, and deep. The rocks above the Falls 
are favourite resorts of poachers, who sit or stand on them, and take fish 
from the pool, and fish attempting to ascend, by any means in their powder. 
The morning, about four o'clock in summer, is stated to be about the best 
time. The Falls are said to belong, one side to Mr Mitchell Innes of 
Phantassie, and the other to the Burgh of East Linton, f 
No salmon have ever been seen, I was informed, in the spacious pool 
below the falls. In fact, so far as I could learn, the Tyne seems to be a 
sea-trout or bull-trout, rather than a salmon river. The keeper on the 
Hailes Water told me that he had never killed nor seen a salmon in the 
river, nor a salmon smolt or parr. But he had killed as many as five 
sea-trout in a day — the heaviest he killed being 9 lbs. The heaviest 
yellow trout he ever captured on the Hailes Water was lbs. The 
Tyne trout are thick, short, and handsome, and cut quite pink. The 
heaviest basket of yellow trout he ever saw taken out of the Tyne, 
weighed 23 lbs. Mr Moncrieff, land steward, Phantassie, corroborated 
what Macdonald, the keeper, ?aid about there being no salmon in the 
Tyne. The heaviest sea - trout he ever saw taken from the river 
weighed 1 4 lbs. This year it is said that two grilse have been taken from 
the Tyne, and it is conjectured that these have been the result of a 
number of salmon fry that were put into the river some time ago by Mr 
John Anderson of Edinburgh. 
If the Tyne be really and naturally a sea-trout or bull-trout river, I 
should be inclined to think that any attempts to turn it into a salmon 
river would end in failure. The experiment was tried a good many years 
ago on a grand scale by the Duke of Northumberland in the River 
Coquet in Northumberland, and ended in failure ; and the Coquet is 
now frequented only by bull-trout, as it was evidently the intention of 
nature that it should be. 
On Friday, the 25th July, I left East Linton to follow the Tyne from 
that village to its mouth, near Tyninghame. 
A little way below the linn, and nearly opposite the poorhouse, 
* A plan for effectually opening up the Falls at East Linton, prepared so far back 
as 1869, by Mr G. H. List, Chief Constable of Berwickshire and Haddingtonshire, 
forms Note IV. to this Report. 
+ It is stated, in the Statistical Account of Scotland (1821), in the description of 
the Parish of Prestonkirk, that the rocks above the Linn are mentioned in the 
previous Statistical Account (1790-1800) as seriously obstructing the ascent of 
salmon. But it is added : — ' Since that period a passage has been opened for tlieni, 
' l)ut without the desired effect, few or no fish having ever been found further up.' 
