S denotes that the fish is in season; F in finest season; and O out of season.

Jan.Feb.March.April.May.June.July.Aug.Sept.Oct.Nov.Dec.
BrillSSSSSSSSSSSS
CarpSSSSSSSSSSSS
CocklesSSSSOOOOSSSS
CodFSSOOOOOSSFF
CrabsOOOSFFFFFSSS
DabsSSSSSSSSOOOO
DaceFFOOOSSSFFFS
EelsSSSOOOOSFFFS
FloundersSSSSSSSSSSSS
GurnetsOOOOSSSSSOOO
HaddocksFSOOSSSSSFFF
HolibutSFFSSFFSSSSS
HerringsSSOOSSFFSSSS
LingSSFSOOOOOSSS
LobstersOOOSFFFSSSSS
MackerelOOOSSSSSSSOO
MulletOOOSSSSOOOOO
Mussels[12]SSSSOOOOSSSS
OystersSSFFOOOOSSSS
PlaiceSOOOSSSSSSSS
PrawnsOOSFFFFSOOOO
SalmonOSSFFFSSOOOO
ShrimpsSSSSSSSSSSSS
SkateFFFFFFSSOOSS
SmeltsSSSSSOOOOOSS
SolesSSSSSSSSSSSS
SpratsSOOOOOOOOOSS
ThornbackOOOOOOSSSSSO
TroutOSFFFFSSOOOO
TurbotSSSSSSSSSSSS
WhitingsFFOOOSSSSFFF

There is no organisation in Scotland for carrying on the white fisheries, as there is in the case of the oyster or herring fisheries. So far as our most plentiful table fish are concerned, the supply seems utterly dependent on chance or the will of individuals. A man (or company) owning a boat goes to sea just when he pleases. In Scotland, where a great quantity of the best white fish are caught, this is particularly the case, and the consequence is that at the season of the year when the principal white and flat fish are in their primest condition, they are not to be procured; the general answer to all inquiries as to the scarcity being, “The men are away at the herring.” This is true; the best boats and the strongest and most intelligent fishermen have removed for a time to distant fishing-towns to engage in the capture of the herring, which forms, during the summer months, a noted industrial feature on the coasts of Scotland, and allures to the scene all the best fishermen, in the hope that they may gain a prize in the great herring-lottery, prizes in which are not uncommon, as some boats will take fish to the extent of two hundred barrels in the course of a week or two. Only a few decrepit old men are left to try their luck with the cod and haddock lines; the result being, as I have stated above, a scarcity of white and flat fish, which is beginning to be felt in greatly enhanced prices. An intelligent Newhaven fishwife recently informed me that the price of white fish in Edinburgh—a city close to the sea—has been more than quadrupled within the last thirty years. She remembers when the primest haddocks were sold at about one penny per pound weight, and in her time herrings have been so plentiful that no person would purchase them. We shall not soon look again on such times.

The cod and haddock fishery is a laborious occupation. At Buckie, a quaint fishing-town on the Moray Firth, which I will by and by describe, it is one of the staple occupations of the people. At that, little port there are generally about thirty or forty large boats engaged in the fishery, as well as a number of smaller craft used to fish inshore. These boats, which measure from thirty to forty feet, are, with the necessary hooks and lines, of the value of about £100. Each boat is generally the property of a joint-stock company, and has a crew of eight or nine individuals, who all claim an equal share in the fish captured. The Buckie men often go a long distance, forty or fifty miles, to a populous fishing-place, and are absent from home for a period of fifteen or twenty hours. At many of the fishing villages from which herring or cod boats depart, there is no proper harbour, and at such places the sight of the departing fleet is a most animated one, as all hands, women included, have to lend their aid in order to expedite the launching of the little fleet, as the men who are to fish must be kept dry and comfortable. Even at places where there is a harbour, it is often not used, many of the boats being drawn up for convenience on what is called the boat-shore. At Cockenzie, near Edinburgh, several of the boats are still drawn up in this rude way, and the women not only assist in launching and drawing up the boats, but they sell the produce taken by each crew by auction to the highest bidder—the purchasers usually being buyers on speculation, who send off the fish by train to Edinburgh, Manchester, or London.

From the little ports of the Moray Firth, the men, as I have said, have to go long distances to fish for cod and ling. As they have none but open boats, it will easily be understood that they live hard upon such occasions. They are sometimes absent from home for about a week at a stretch, and as the weather is often very inclement the men suffer severely. The fish are not so easily procured as in former years, so that the remuneration for the labour undergone is totally inadequate. A large traffic in living codfish used to be carried on from Scotland; quick vessels furnished with wells took the cod alive as far as Gravesend, whence they were sent on to London as required. Although the railways have put an end to a good deal of this style of transport, some cargoes of cod have been carried alive all the way from the Rockall fishery to Gravesend. But the percentage of waste is necessarily enormous: however, it pays to do this, and one result of the Rockall discovery has been the starting of a joint-stock company to work one of the large North Sea fisheries. The cod-bank at the Faroe Islands is now about exhausted; but the gigantic cod-fishery which has been carried on for two centuries on the banks of Newfoundland still continues to be prosecuted with great enterprise, although, according to reliable information, not with the success which characterised the fishery some years ago. In a few years more it will be quite possible to make a decided impression even on the cod-banks of Newfoundland. The Great Dogger Bank fishery has now become affected by overfishing, and the Rockall Bank fails to yield anything like the large “takes” with which it rewarded those who first despoiled it of its finny treasures. A gentleman who dabbles a little in fishing speculations writes me—“In 1862, I sent a fine smack to Rockall, and fish were in great plenty—some very large; but the weather is usually so bad, and the bank so exposed to the heavy seas of the North Atlantic, that the best and largest vessels fail to fish with profit in consequence of the wear and tear and delay. This will account in some degree for the cessation of enterprise as regards the Rockall fishery.” A writer in the Quarterly Review, a few years ago, said of the Dogger Bank:—“No better proof that its stores are failing could be given than the fact that, although the ground, counting the Long Bank and the north-west flat in its vicinity, covers 11,800 square miles, and that in fine weather it is fished by the London companies with from fifteen to twenty dozen of long lines, extending ten or twelve miles, and containing from 9000 to 12,000 hooks, it is not yet at all common to take even as many as fourscore of fish of a night—a poverty which can be better appreciated when we learn that 600 fish for 800 hooks is the catch for deep-sea fishing about Kinsale.” I cannot say much about the white-fish fisheries of Ireland from personal knowledge, but I have been informed on good authority that the coast fisheries of that country are not half worked, and consequently are not in such an exhausted state as those of Scotland and England. The west coast of Ireland, from Galway Bay to Erris Head north, and north-west to Donegal Bay, is said to contain all the best kinds of table fish in great quantities—mackerel being plentiful in their season, as are cod, hake, ling, and others of the Gadidæ. As for turbot, they can be had everywhere, and have been so plentiful as to be used for bait on the long lines set for haddock, etc. Lobsters and other shell-fish can likewise be procured in any quantity. If the accounts given of the abundance of white fish on the Irish coasts are to be relied upon, there must be a rare field there for the opening up of new fishing enterprises.

Prolific as our coast fisheries have been, and still are, comparatively speaking, the North Sea is at present the grand reservoir from which we obtain our white fish. Indeed, it has been the great fish-preserve of the surrounding peoples since ever there was a demand for this kind of food. All the best-known fishing banks are to be found in the German Ocean—Faroe, Loffoden, Shetland, and others nearer home—and its waters, filling up an area of 140,000 square miles, teem with the best kinds of fish, and give employment to thousands of people, as well in their capture and cure as in the building of the ships, and the development of the commerce which is incidental to all large enterprises.

It will doubtless be interesting to my readers to know something about the general machinery of fish-capture, so far as regards the British sea-fisheries. The modern cod-smack, clipper-built for speed, with large wells for carrying her live fish, costs £1500. She usually carries from nine to eleven men and boys, including the captain. Her average expense per week is £20 during the long-line season in the North Sea; but it exceeds this much if unfortunate in losing lines. Fishing has of late been a most uncertain venture. The line is chiefly used for the purpose of taking cod and haddock. The number of lines taken to sea in an open boat depends upon the number of men belonging to the particular vessel. Each man has a line of 50 fathoms (300 feet) in length; and attached to each of these lines are 100 “snoods,” with hooks already baited with mussels, pieces of herring or whiting. Each line is laid “clear” in a shallow basket or “scull”—that is, it is so arranged as to run freely as the boat shoots ahead. The 50-fathom line, with 100 hooks, is in Scotland termed a “taes.” If there are eight men in a boat the length of line will be 400 fathoms (2400 feet), with 800 hooks (the lines being tied to each other before setting). On arriving at the fishing-ground the fishermen heave overboard a cork buoy, with a flagstaff fixed to it about six feet in height. The buoy is kept stationary by a line, called the “pow-end,” reaching to the bottom of the water, and having a stone or small anchor fastened to the lower end. To the pow-end is also fastened the fishing-line, which is then “paid” out as fast as the boat sails, which may be from four to five knots an hour. Should the wind be unfavourable for the direction in which the crew wish to set the line they use the oars. When the line or taes is all out the end is dropped, and the boat returns to the buoy. The pow-end is hauled up with the anchor and fishing-line attached to it. The fishermen then haul in the line with whatever fish may be on it. Eight hundred fish might be taken (and often have been) by eight men in a few hours by this operation; but many fishermen now say that they consider themselves very fortunate when they get a fish on every five hooks on an eight-taes line. Many a time too the fish are all eaten off the line by “dogs” and other enemies, so that only a few fragments and a skeleton or two remain to show that fish have been caught. The fishermen of deck-welled cod-bangers use both hand-lines and long-lines such as have been described. The cod-bangers’ tackling is of course stronger than that used in open boats. The long-lines are called “grut-lines,” or great-lines. Every deck-welled cod-banger carries a small boat on deck for working the great-lines in moderate weather. This boat is also provided with a well, in which the fish are kept alive till they arrive at the banger, when they are transferred from the small boat’s well to that of the larger vessel.

Hungry codfish will seize any kind of bait, and great-lines are usually baited with bits of whiting, herring, haddock, or almost any kind of fish. For hand-lines the fishermen prefer mussels or white whelks. White whelks are caught by a line on which is fastened a number of pieces of carrion or cod-heads. This line is laid along the bottom where whelks are known to abound. The whelks attach themselves to the cod-heads, and are pulled up, put into net bags, something like onion-nets, and placed in the well of the vessel, where they are kept alive till required for use. Another kind of bait used by the boat fishermen for hand-lines is that of the lugworm. The “lug” is a sand-worm, from four to five inches long, and about the thickness of a man’s finger. The head part of the worm is of a dark brown fleshy substance, and is the part used as bait, the rest of the worm being nothing but sand. The “lug” is dug from the sand with a small spade or three-pronged fork.

The principal fishing-grounds in the North Sea where cod-bangers are employed are the Dogger Bank, Well Bank, and Dutch Bank. The fishing-ground of the open-boat fishermen is on the coasts of Fife, Midlothian, and Berwickshire; for haddocks, cod, ling, etc., it is around the island of May and the Bell Rock, Marrbank, Murray Bank, and Montrose Pits, etc.