Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ... Chapter XX. NETTING, LEGAL AND ILLEGAL, OBSTRUCTIONS AND POLLUTIONS. The bag and stake nets that fish round the Scotch coasts have been so numerously increased, and so improved in construction, that unless some limit is placed by law on their numbers, they must slowly but surely exhaust the supply of sea trout and salmon; for, notwithstanding that the number of the nets has been doubled during the last twenty years, the close time has remained the same! Therefore if, when there were only one thousand nets working on the coasts, it was thought necessary to provide a close time of thirty-six hours each week, surely it follows, now that there are two thousand nets at work, that the close time should be extended to meet the increase of the nets, and until this is done, the greater will be the falling off each season. There are other causes contributing to the yearly decrease of the salmon fisheries, such as the non-observance of the weekly close time, poaching by scringers, by steam trawlers, and by yachts. Badly drawn estuary lines and absurdly fixed close times also contribute to the decay; but the bag nets are the chief source of evil. Before going further, it will be as well to describe the working of these nets and the small difference that exists between the two kinds. A bag net consists of a piece of net from eighty to one hundred yards long and from six to eight feet in width, which is stretched from the shore at right angles to the bottom of the ocean, and terminates at the sea end in a box or bag of net; this long net is called the lead, and it and the bag are kept taut and in fishing position and Moating in deep water by leverage gained from a purchase on buoys moored to various anchors. In some places these nets are used singly, ..
