THE EISHING GAZETTE 
81) 
February 11, 1893] 
CO NTE NTS. 
If.B .—All rights reserved in articles published in this 
paper, 
Tlie Spring Salmon Rivers of Scotland . 89 
The Lower Thames Trout Preservation Society ... 91 
Windermere and its Surroundings. 91 
Notes and Queries . 
C'ori’espondence. 
The American Method of Casting from the Metal 
Multiplier Reel . 1*^ 
A Successful Salmon Ladder . 95 
Tweeds from Galashiels . 95 
Waltoniana. 90 
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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11th, 1893. 
THE SPRING SALMON RIVERS OF 
SCOTLAND. 
AS THEY ARE. 
{Continued from page 70.) 
By W. Murdoch. 
Unlike those of Tweed, Tay, Spey, North Esk, 
Ac., proprietors of Dee fishings, to their credit be 
it told, have not been wanting in that enterprise 
which tends to maintain, nay more, enhance, 
productiveness. In consequence the Dee is to all 
parties concerned as paying as ever, if not more 
so, while for angling during the spring months it 
is unquestionably, taken as a whole, much the 
most productive river in the whole kingdom. 
Seldom does it yield fewer than five thousand 
spring fish to the rod, and in years not long gone 
by the total has been known to run up as high as 
from six to eight thousand. If treated on the 
lines I have previously suggested and recom¬ 
mended, Tweed, Tay, and Spey, which all have a 
greater body and extent of water, ought to, and 
no doubt soon would, be equally excellent in 
respect of their yield of fish to the rod during 
the spring months. 
Many years ago now, an association was formed 
on the Dee, named the Dee Salmon Fishery 
Improvement Association, which had for its 
object the leasing of net fishings, commencing at 
Banchory-Ternan, nineteen miles from the sea 
(above which point there were no nets), and going 
downward as far as the funds of the association 
would permit. This association have gradually 
extended their operations as the netting leases 
expired, till now they have leased the netting and 
removed the river nets at every station from 
Banchory Ternan down to within about a mile of 
the tideway. Steadily since this plan of im- 
Drovement commenced the angling has become 
better. Of course, much fewer nets have been 
fishing, but they also, taking the average of the 
seasons, have secured a greater catch of fish than 
previously was obtained by the whole far greater 
number. This demonstrates, as plainly as 
possible, what wonderful improvement by fol¬ 
lowing so good an example, the proprietors of 
Tay, Tweed, Spey, North Esk, &c., could secure, 
and how wonderfully paying to them the result 
of such properly directed enterprise would prove. 
The Dee is very early, indeed it may be affirmed 
that, the Tay excepted, it eclipses entirely all the 
Scotch rivers in point of numbers of spring 
fish to ascend in the months of January and 
February. During a mild winter its run of small 
springers,” which commences in December, is 
found to be very strong in the month of January, 
and in strength it increases in February, during 
which, with the water in sufficient volume, the 
bead of fish to push inland is usually something 
sxtraordinary, but on the 11th of the month, the 
netting in the tideway and at the few remaining 
stations on the river commences, after which time 
but few fish succeed in running past every net 
except when the water is very high. Weekly, 
however, there is the thirty-six hours slap, which 
permits of a free run and feeds the angling 
reaches with a supply—relays of fresh-run fish. 
As will be understood, the bulk of the fish that 
take to the river during the slap, succeed in 
making the inland passage. With only one mile 
to run until they get past all the netting stations, 
this distance thej' soon travel; hence it is that all 
except those that may quit the tideway about an 
hour or an hour and a half before the netting 
commences at six o’clock on Monday morning 
succeed in getting away up river to afford sport 
to anglers, and those uncaught of them to gradu¬ 
ally work forward to the farthest inland spawning 
reaches of the river, which in due time they 
reach, and which as a rule, are fully stocked by 
them in the breeding season. 
On the Dee there is further commendable enter¬ 
prise to be noted, in that it has a hatchery of 
immense capacity, which is an additional aid to 
the up-keep of the river’s productiveness, and to 
the maintenance of which pretty much the same 
proprietors as form the Improvement Association 
are the principal contributors. 
There is, unfortunately, one great abuse to the 
Dee fishery, which, to an extent that can scarcely 
be estimated, is hurtful to the angling through¬ 
out the whole of the season, from Feb. II to 
Aug. 26. This is the “ horse ” net which is inside 
the new breakwa’er, and which, even without the 
leader, fishes very effectively, in consecjnenoe of 
the breakwater proving a leader to it of the most 
efficient description. The leader is always out 
during the weekly slap. Nevertheless, out of this 
net on Monday morning, immense numbers of 
fish are taken. Any one who may pass along the 
breakwater on Sunday will, if the weather is 
bright, and provided the water is not rough, see 
numbers of fish struggling in this net. And it is 
no unusual thing on a Monday morning for many 
hundreds of fish to be taken out at six o’clock by 
the net fishers before they fix their leader. A 
strong north wind prevailing during Sunday 
drives the fish right into it, and occasions have 
been when in one morning the netters have taken 
out over one thousand fish, all illegally caught, 
and this—think of it—all out of a net that should 
not have caught one. 
Mr. Archibald Young, late Inspector of Scotch 
Salmon Fisheries, in his first annual report to 
the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for the 
year ending December, 1882, comments upon the 
“ horse ” net thus : “ At present the Dee has no 
estuary—the old estuary having been enclosed by 
the extension of the harbour works, and there is 
now a bag-net immediately witbin the new break¬ 
water, which serves the purpose of a leader to it. By 
a bye-law, which took effect from 7th March, 1865, 
^he estuary of the Dee was declared to be ‘ a por- 
ion of a circle of 400 yards radius to be drawn 
rom a centre, placed mid-way between tbe outer- 
nost point of the north pier and the outermost 
loint of the breakwater, and continued shore- 
wards by tangents to the circle drawn to the 
nearest point of the shore of the respective sides 
of the river at high-water mark of equinoctial 
spring tides.’ But the points mentioned in this 
bye-law no longer exist. The breakwater therein 
mentioned has been pulled down, and a new one 
erected so much farther seaward as to be beyond 
the old estuary limit, and the point of the north 
pier has also been carried many hundred feet 
farther east so as to correspond with the new 
breakwater. It is clear, therefore, that in fair¬ 
ness to the river proprietors, a new estuary 
should be fixed for the Dee, measured from 
the present outermost points of the north 
pier and of the new breakwater, and pro¬ 
viding that the extension of the estuary 
shall keep pace with the extension seawards of 
these two points. There is, unfortunately, no 
power to do this under the existing Acts, and, 
therefore, in any new Act provision should bo 
made that the Secretary of State should have 
power, on the petition of the majority of a 
District Board, or, where no District Board 
exists, on the petition of a majority of the pro¬ 
prietors of salmon fishings in a district, to alter 
and amend estuary lines after inquiry and on 
cause shown.” 
The Dee has over sixty miles of spring angling 
water, along the whole of which, some time or 
other, from February to June inclusive, sport is 
obtained—from middling to first rate, according 
to the beats and the time of the season. 
^cofd) iXofcs. 
By Mac. 
To the rod, and in too many cases the net also, 
there are now open of the principal salmon rivers 
of Scotland, that afford spring salmon angling 
worthy of the name, the following, to wit: Tweed, 
Teith, Tay and Tummel, Dee, Spey, G-arry, Beauly, 
Conon and Black water, Oarron, Oykel, Cassley 
and Shin, Brora and Blackwater, Helmsdale, 
Thurso, Forss, Halladale, Naver, Borgie, Oarron, 
Ewe, Lochy, Spean and Awe-Orchy. While with 
conditions wholly favouring it, the angling will 
be good over—or in parts of—quite a number of 
those rivers presently, it will, on the other hand, 
not be of great account on a number of others 
for a considerable time to come. The only rivers 
that open after to-day, and which have lots of 
spring fish native to them, are the North and 
South Esks. All the rest, to the number of about 
forty, have no spring angling for salmon, and but 
few spring salmon appearing on their coast. To¬ 
day some naturally early salmon rivers, quite 
famous for their number of spring salmon, in¬ 
cluding Don, Deveron, and Spey, open for rod 
and net fishing ; but, though vast numbers o£ fish 
have already pushed in to them from the sea, 
there yet will be no angling on them, for the rea¬ 
son that the nets will sweep out, almost wholesale, 
the stock (already run) which are forward to and 
have not been able to get beyond those confounded 
obstructions—cruives and dykes—which are the 
bane of these fisheries. 
On all the salmon fisheries of the far north 
that opened to the rods last month anglers have 
now scored. The drawing of the first blood was 
long delayed—nothing being done until about a 
fortnight after the opening day—in consequence 
of frost and ice. __ 
Although the thunder loud may roar, 
It may but thunder and pass o’er. 
Would that this may prove the case soon; there 
is need indeed. It is pretty freely stated in well 
informed circles that the members of the present 
Fishery Board of Scotland are already at sixes 
and sevens. Brushes are reported as of frequent 
occurrence, and always it comes about that some 
one much given to peace has to pour oil on the 
troubled waters. The bickerings in the last 
board, I think, should have served as a warning 
to the present board to carry on a calm sough. 
So long as rancorous hitting goes on there is poor 
prospect of very much useful work being accom¬ 
plished. The board have an immense field to 
attend and do justice to ; and this at least is cer- 
tain—they could gain for themselves a good name 
and much credit by tackling, in an earnest ana 
