June 24, 1893] 
THE EISHING GAZETTE 
481 
THE DEVERON. 
ITS POSITION, AND SALMON AND 
TEOUT FISHINGS. 
By W. Murdoch. 
In other respects than for its trouting, the 
Deveron is a “ first-classer.” To no river in 
Scotland does it play “ second fiddle ” for varied 
and delightful character of angling water, 
whether for salmon or Salmo fario; while the 
scenery it possesses at many points along its 
course—far inland, truly Highland and wild ; 
more seaward, generally sylvan and varied—is 
of the most romantic and eye-pleasing descrip¬ 
tion. From its source near the Buck of the 
Cabrach—in proximity to which numerous 
atfiuents, splendid for smallish trout, rush 
their waters down narrow straths between 
bare mountains to form, after they have all 
joined the parent stream, a sizeable river—the 
Deveron rounds about with many a twist 
through the counties of Aberdeen and Banff, 
and after being joined by the Bogie, the Isla, 
the Kinedar, and other considerable streams 
of acknowledged trouting repute, and having 
had a run of about sixty miles, north and 
north-eastward in the main, falls into the sea 
at Banff Bay near the now nice little burgh 
town of Banff, which occupied in earlier times 
not quite such enviable repute, as can be in¬ 
ferred from the rhyme about it, then known 
to everyone, and which commenced:— 
“ Banff it is a burgh toon. 
Has a kirk without a steeple, 
A midden load at ilka door. 
And d-d unceevil people.” 
For early season trouting with fly the 
Deveron is unquestionably the best and most 
certain of all Scottish rivers. Moreover, in 
these days of hard angling, it probably still is 
the best stocked with trout running from ^Ib. 
to l^lb., and though it may not contain so 
many large ones as the Don to bring up, to 
the mind of the fastidious angler, a hand¬ 
some average weight, it yet now is, and for a 
good number of years has been, much more run 
upon by anglers from the south who go in for the 
trout of the early season rise. The water a nice 
volume, the weather all right, and the natural fly 
well up—these favourable conditions severally 
obtaining, and it will be found by the adept at 
fly-fishing for trout that he can obtain on almost 
any reach of river between Huntly and the sea, 
any day during April and May, such a basket of 
trout as ought to satisfy him moder¬ 
ately, if not remarkably well. Every 
section along the whole of this length 
of river is preserved, but latterly it 
has become with several of the pro¬ 
prietors quite the custom to let their 
water during the trouting season, and 
this, it is easy to understand, they 
never find any difficulty in doing, for 
early trouting with fly, on a beautiful 
river, noted for its heavy baskets of 
fine trout, is nowadays reckoned by 
vast numbers of anglers to be second 
to no sort of sport with the rod that 
they can indulge in. 
For salmon the Deveron is naturally 
splendid, in respect alike of its repro¬ 
ductive capacity and of the head of 
fish native to it. How the latter ke?p 
up is simply marvellous, considering 
the wny that the whole fishery is 
racked. If a river with but merely a 
spring migration of fish, or yet one 
with even two migrations—a spring 
one and a summer one, the latter of 
grilse for the most part—it would 
long ere this time have become prac¬ 
tically fished out; but from being a 
long-seasoned river, possessing three distinct 
migrations, its fishing, although it is nothing like 
what it ought to be, has been kept up by t' e 
great head of its autumn fish and the splendid and 
great extent of water there is for them to spawn 
in, when they do get forward in proper numbers. 
Of miles of the lower waters the Duke of File, 
like the Duke of Richmond in the case of the 
Spey, is the sole proprietor, and similarly' in his 
hands is the whole of the netting, which, along 
with a rack dyke or cruive, is the means of com¬ 
pletely farming the whole fishery—permitting of 
scarcely a single fish at any time during spring 
and summer, or even indeed until September, 
getting forward to the reaches of the farther- 
inland proprietors. The fishing is the Duke’s by' 
right absolute, and if he lets it to a tenant, the 
tenant, whoever he may' bo, is certainly- justified 
in making the most of it. Neither the one nor 
the other is to be blamed for what is done, and if 
the upper proprietors complain it is without 
reason, since at any time they have an effectual 
remedy- in their own hands, and which heretofore 
had they not proved either so apathetic or so 
grippij, I hey would availed themselves of. Nothing 
short of buying up his Grace’s cruive and netting 
rights will give the Deveron during spring and 
summer that status among the salmon rivers of 
Scotland for wealth of fish and angling results 
that its natural resources give warrant that it 
would occupy-. 
From a friend who for long years has fished the 
Deveron, and is intimately acquainted with the 
! greater part of it, I have received the following 
j general notes, together with particulars of the 
best salmon rod fishings and their pods :—The 
Deveron is of very little importance for salmon 
' angling save during the time between early in 
September and the end of October. It ought, 
however, to be good all the open season—always, 
of cour.-e, when weather and water suit. No 
doubt about it—were the netting controlled by, 
and in the interests of, all the proprietors, and the 
only obstruction to fish passage—the rack dyke 
on the Duff House water—removed, the fishing 
would soon become equally as good in spring and 
summer for the angler as it now is in autumn on 
the fisheries from Huntly to the sea. The cost to 
the upper proprietors of setting the whole fishery 
to rights and on the way to yielding to its full 
natural capacity, would no doubt be very great, 
but the benefit resulting to themselves they 
would soon experience ; and they would also find 
in the event of letting their fishings that the 
handsome rents fetched brought them a 
splendid rate of interest for their money. 
Some there are who maintain that the 
Deveron is degenerating as a salmon river, 
but this is not the case in respect of its 
autumn rod fishing, as can be proved by those 
proprietors who keep a record of what is done 
year after year on their sections. That there 
have been and always will be seasons of 
failure, or comparative failure, no one will 
attempt to deny; everywhere the same obtains. 
On the Deveron our worse season of recent 
years was 1884, when a sand bar formed across 
the mouth of the river caused (from the low 
state of the water through long-continued 
drought during summer) by the action of the 
sea forcing in the sand, and the push of water 
from the river not being ample to drive it out. 
This so completely blocked the way that not 
a single fish could enter from the sea, and 
although by spates the channel was cleared by 
the middle of October the fish, when at length 
they came, were, from being too long detained 
in the “ briny,” in no mood for taking; indeed, 
far more inclined to get timously to the spawn¬ 
ing grounds to which they were fast thronging 
forward. The following year, however, was a 
splendid one—that was in 1885, when the 
fishing was generally supposed to be about 
the best known for number of fish, albeit the 
weight was a trifle below the average. 
The cruives have a most ruinous effect on all 
the reaches above them. No better proof of this 
is required than to see the number of salmon 
that the pool immediately below gives on the 
opening day of the season to the nets. 0 wing to 
the river’s low temperature, back every fish is 
kept by the cruives, not one getting over them, 
although not irnlikely many hundreds get for¬ 
ward to them quite a mouth before. They come 
up only to be forced to drop back, hence they 
are all kept lying a prey for the netters when the 
netting commences. Hundreds on the opening 
day and subsequent days in favourable seasons 
may be netted just behind the cruives, yet for 
months afterwards not a single one is 
got by the rods higher up. It is only a 
few years since 400 were taken out on 
the opening day—all fish that had been 
kept back by the rack or cruive dyke. 
There is not the least doubt that if 
the river were rid of this barrier the 
fish of the early season that come in 
before the netting opens would, instead 
of tarrying to be slaughtered whole¬ 
sale, get on their way at a good pace ; 
be past all danger by the opening day, 
and be fotmd as they moved up to dis¬ 
tribute themselves along the whole run 
of the river to afford sport the season 
throughout to a number of anglers 
along with the other fish that would 
run during the successive weekly slaps, 
aud this, besides being beneficial to 
sport, would be of advantage other¬ 
wise to the river and district. 
The number of fish that year after 
year may be seen lying below the 
cruives late in the autumn or seeking 
unsuccessfully to pass them in their 
efforts to get to the spawning grounds 
is simply enormous. I don’t think 
any river can be better off for spawn- 
I ing grounds, and yet, sad to relate, the fish, by 
reason of this monstrous obstruction, are kept in 
great numbers frcm getting forward to occupy 
them. 
Mr. Bisset, lessee of the net fishings, some years 
ago erected within Duff House grounds a salmon 
hatchery, which, I believe, has been a success, a 
quantity of spawn of the rack dyke detained fish, 
which otherwise would have been lost, having 
been secured and brought to life in it. But this 
can only go a very short way to compensate for 
