SALMON-FISHING STATION AT WOODHAVEN ON TAY.
A few local inquiries as to angling on the Tay will elicit more valuable information than I can give here. At some places on the lower portion of the water the aid of a boat (a Tay boat) is necessary, as the best pools are otherwise inaccessible to the angler. The cost of a boat and man ranges, I think, from three to six shillings, and on the smooth parts of the river one man is generally enough for attendance. Some parts of the Tay are quite free to all comers, especially about Kinfauns; and, if I mistake not, up all the way from Perth to the breeding-ponds at Stormontfield. Perth forms a capital centre for the angler: it is a good place in which to obtain information or tackle, and it is easy to get away from the “Fair City” to places and streams of note. And if the angler wants to “harl” the Tay itself, Perth is the very best place to obtain instructions in the art of “harling,” which is very attractive. The commercial fishings may be seen in operation at and below Perth: they are carried on by means of the net and coble. A boat sails out with the net, and taking in a sweep of the water returns, in its progress enclosing any of the salmon kind that may be in that part of the river. The operation is usually repeated several times each day at every fishing station.
The Tay salmon-fisheries are owned by various noblemen, gentlemen, and corporations; and they yield a gross annual rent of nearly £17,000. To give an idea of the individual value and the occasional fluctuations of even the best fisheries, we may cite some of the figures connected with the rental of the river Tay. Lord Gray, for instance, has drawn from his fisheries more than £100,000 during the last thirty-five years. The salmon and grilse obtained for this sum run from 10,000 to 28,000 a year. It has been frequently asserted that our salmon-fisheries are a lottery, and in confirmation of this it may be stated that in 1831, when 10,000 fish were taken, the rental of this fishery was £4000; and that in 1842, when the capture was 28,453 fish, the rental was £1000 less. Dividing the income for the two years, we have the following result:—Averaging the fish at 5s. each gives as a loss to the tenant on the 10,000 year of £1500, while on the other year there is the large profit of £4000! But the value of the Tay fisheries will be better estimated by mentioning that in some seasons the number of fish taken from the mouth of the Isla down to the sea has ranged from 70,000 to upwards of 100,000. Ten of the fishing-stations between Perth and Newburgh used to produce an annual rental of about (on the average) £700 each.
As to the much-discussed stake-net question, the following figures may be quoted:—About the end of last century, before the existence of stake-nets, the average number of fish taken at the Kinfauns fishery was—salmon, 8720; grilse, 1714. In the first ten years of the present century, the average annual catch of salmon fell to 4666, and the grilse numbered 1616. After the stake-nets were removed, and in the ten years from 1815 to 1824, the average number of salmon caught was 9010 per annum, and of grilse 8709. I have purposely avoided filling up my space with an accumulation of proof on this point, but were further proof required of the deadly influence of stake and bag nets on the salmon rivers, it could easily be had; indeed, ample testimony has, from time to time, been recorded in Parliament, both against the stake-nets, and that “chamber of horrors” for the salmon, the deadly bag. A stream like the Tay ought to have a stock of breeding-fish sufficient to produce more than 100,000,000 of eggs, because the destruction of the spawn and the young fish is so enormous as to require provision for a large amount of waste; hence the value of artificial cultivation. By the natural system of spawning it is supposed that only one egg in each thousand comes to the fisherman’s net as a twenty-five pound fish.
The river Spey is an excellent salmon-producing stream; in fact, size considered, it is the richest in Scotland, the fishings at Speymouth being worth £12,000 per annum. The Spey is about a hundred and twenty miles on its course before it falls into the sea, and some parts of the river are very picturesque.
“Dipple, Dundurcus, Dandaleith, and Dalvey
Are the bonniest haughs on the run of the Spey.”
The stream is very rapid, having in its course a fall of twelve hundred feet; it rushes on in one continuous gallop from its mountain well to the sea, giving rise to the local proverb of there being “no standing water in Spey,” although there are pools thirty feet deep. Still, as a rule, the river is shallow, having generally a depth of about three feet; and there are places which, when the water is a little low, may be crossed by a man on foot.
I have seen the rafts of wood coming down from the hills at the rate of ten miles an hour; and the Spey is not only the most rapid, but also the wildest of all our large Scottish rivers. “The cause of this is easily explained. The river drains thirteen hundred miles of mountains, many of whose bases are more than a thousand feet above the level of the sea. The Dulnain, draining the southern part of the Monagh Lea Mountains, runs more than forty miles before entering Spey; and the Avon, with a course as long, brings down the waters of Glenavon, which lies between the most majestic mountains in Britain. Besides these great tributaries, the Spey has the Truim, the Tromie, the Feshie, the Fiddoch, and other affluents, swelling her volume with the rapidly-descending waters of a mountainous country.” The river Spey is an example of a well-managed stream, and in the late Duke of Richmond’s time produced a very handsome revenue. It was well managed, because the duke fished it himself; and, of course, it was his interest to have it well protected, and to keep a handsome stock of breeding fish. For instance, in the years 1858 and 1859 the duke drew on the Spey for upwards of 107,000 salmon and grilse, and the fish in that river are as plentiful as ever. On the Spey, however, there is no confusion of upper and lower proprietors to fight against and take umbrage at each other, the river belonging mostly to one proprietor. Other Scottish rivers also yield, or did at one time yield, large annual sums in the shape of rental; and on the larger salmon rivers of Scotland the income derived by many of the “lairds” from the salmon forms a very welcome addition to their land revenues. Mr. Johnstone, the lessee of the Esk fisheries at Montrose, stated at a public meeting held some time ago in Edinburgh to protest against the removal of stake-nets, that he estimated the Duke of Sutherland’s fisheries at £6000 a year, and quoted his own rents as £4000 per annum, giving him the privilege to fish on two different rivers, on one of which he had eight miles of water, on the other six. The rents of the sea salmon-fisheries of Scotland (stake and bag nets), which the recent bill of the Lord Advocate proposed to abolish, range from £20 to £1000 per annum. Princely rentals have been drawn from the salmon rivers of that division of the United Kingdom.