A Perilous Catch

by Mike Smylie

  It was always the North Sea that overshadowed any other parts of Britain in terms fish landed. The fleets of boats chased the shoals southward from the Shetland Isles in the early spring, along the Scottish and English east coasts progressively over the summer to arrive off East Anglia for the Great Autumnal Fishery there, as it became known, though locally it was the hoom fishin. Boats from all over – though most notably Scotland, Northumberland, Yorkshire and East Anglia, and Cornwall and the Isle of Man on the south and west sides of England. That was after about 1860 when bigger boats had been built, decked over as Washington had advised in his report, as discussed in the Introduction.

  It would have been about this time that the difference between fishing as a longshoreman and that of a serious herring fisher became obvious. The longshoreman always worked off his own shore, wherever that was, using the same boat for various forms of fishing, depending on the season. Seasoned herring fishermen, on the other hand, were chasing the shoals in their bigger boats that could remain at sea for longer periods and had a basic, if not comfortable, accommodation aboard for extended fishing away from home. For the first time fishing boats from Scotland could fish off southern Ireland and Cornish luggers were able to join in for the North Sea herring fishery.

  A large part of this was due exactly to the fact that the boats were luggers, not burdened by squaresails or the sprit rig. On the east coast of Scotland they built fine northern ‘scaffies’ in a sort of expansion of the Scandinavian influence brought over centuries before, while in the south of the area it was the straight stemmed ‘fifie’ that was favoured by the fishermen, a design said to have been influenced by Dutch boatbuilders. In the 1880s a hybrid of the two became the popular vessel: the Zulu. At over 80ft in length, this was a huge vessel, powered by two huge dipping lugsails, having an upright stem and a heavily sloping sternpost at the after end which gave a long overhang. In Yorkshire they fished with their Yorkshire yawls and in Cornwall again they favoured the lug-rig upon their mackerel and pilchard drivers (drifters). The Manx soon followed the Cornish, building similar luggers which they called ‘nickeys’ as we shall see in a later chapter. As the boats grew in length, so did the number of the drift-nets they set each night, hastened on by the changeover from hemp to cotton nets. Cotton was lighter hence nets could be longer for the same weight.

  Wick, in northeast Scotland, in 1865 when it was considered the herring capital of Europe. A thousand boats landed into the harbour during the herring season, the cured herring being exported to all points of the compass.

  St Monans, on the Fife coast, with some of its fleet of fishing boats. These large boats are fifies, named after the region, and were rigged with two huge dipping lugsails that needed a large complement of crew to work them. St Monans was also home to J.N. Millers & Sons who became renowned boatbuilders over a 200-year span.

  For centuries it was the drift-net that herring fishermen relied upon, but, on the shores of Loch Fyne, fishermen from Tarbert were busy changing that in the 1830s. Misuse of a drift-net as a seine-net from the shore, across the mouth of a bay, with the help of one small boat, was producing abundant catches of herring. The next stage was obvious: use of the same net with two boats hauling it around in a circle to trap a shoal of herring and within ten years this was being widely used. However, it was immediately regarded as trawling and the hundreds traditional drift-net fishermen that worked up the loch voiced opposition. They feared the new method was inferior in that it damaged the spawning grounds, and would lead to the situation whereby ‘the Lochfyne fishing which has for centuries been famed for its herrings will be annihilated and its industrious fishermen ruined complete’.14 The method became known as ring-netting.

  The opposition had the advantage of the support of the fish curers and they went to work drawing up an anti-trawling petition and forming a delegation to lobby MPs and the Herring Fishery Board. For sure there were the altercations between the two groups of fishermen that sometimes became violent, and the most vocal made their point. Within time a ban on trawling was introduced and nets and boats were confiscated and impounded though it seems unclear whether this happened when the fishermen were caught red-handed while fishing or simply by coming across their inactive gear.

  There was always the threat of jail too for flouting regulations. Angus Martin tells how his great-great-grandfather John Martin, along with his crews, were convicted of contravening the closed season for herring fishing in 1861. This ran between 1 January and 31 May. They were caught landing herring at night in March and all but John Martin was jailed for ten days. Later that year three Campbeltown fishermen were imprisoned for thirty days for breaking herring regulations.15 Fishing ever since has been an occupation where the courts can inflict almost as much damage to the fishers as can the sea itself.

  The ban never completely stopped ring-netting even after young fishermen Peter McDougall was shot by an officer and a marine from HMS Jackal, a gunboat sent to police the loch. That was in 1861 and within a couple of years those that were originally against the use of the ring-net were adopting it, realising the financial rewards it could bring. Six years later the same people were lobbying for the ban to be lifted and in July 1867 a bill was passed repealing all the legislation banning the method. By 21 August of that year ‘two smacks, seventeen skiffs, eight trawl-nets, one sail, and sixteen fish-boxes had been returned to their owners’.16 Ring-netting commenced in earnest, a method that was technically much improved over the next hundred years and yet one that eventually died out in the 1970s, probably partly through its own success, and partly because of the other, much more effective, methods that superseded it.

  Fishing boats in Girvan harbour. The eastern side of the Clyde had for many generations being actively involved in herring fishing and these boats – known as ‘nabbies’ and nicknamed ‘slopemasts’ – were prolific until the advent of the motor.

  Although ring-netting spread to the Isle of Man, the west of Ireland, parts of eastern England, especially around Whitby and other areas of Scotland, there were the communities that remained steadfastly against its use, such as the Outer Hebrides. Stornoway was a harbour that never really accepted ring-netters though the motorised boats did occasionally berth there after the Second World War, always fearful of any reprisal from the drift-netters.17 Before the war they preferred to take their catch over the Minch to Ullapool or Mallaig. The ring-net was in use throughout the Minch, around all the islands, and after the war some of the fishermen of the Outer Islands adopted the method themselves.18 Some parts of the coast remained steadfastly opposed to it but generally the fortunes of ring-netting brought incredible wealth to many families, families that still exist and benefit from it. Furthermore, the ring-netters produced some of the prettiest work boats seen in British waters – the Lochfyne skiffs and the motorised ringers – and some of the most endearing written social histories.19

  Notes

  1 See Mike Smylie, Herring: A History of the Silver Darlings, Stroud, 2004.

  2 Arthur Michael Samuel, The Herring; Its Effect on the History of Britain, London, 1918.

  3 John Haywood, Dark Age Naval Power, Hockwold-cum-Wilton, 1999.

  4 Samuel, op. cit., 1918.

  5 For a detailed account of the Dutch herring fishery, see Anthony Beaujon, The History of the Dutch Sea Fisheries, London, 1884.

  6 Smylie, op. cit., 2004.

  7 John Dyson, Business in Great Waters, London, 1977, tells this story among others.

  8 Samuel, op. cit., 1918.

  9 The Commissioners and Trustees for Improving Fisheries and Manufactures in Scotland, His Majesty’s Patent for Improving Fisheries and Manufactures in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1727.

  10 Jean Dunlop, The British Fisheries Society 1786–1893, Edinburgh, 1978.

  11 Malcolm Gray, The Fishing Industries of Scotland 1790–1914, Aberdeen, 1978.

  12 Smylie, op. cit., 2004.

  13 See the Manx Sea Fishing 1600–1990s educational pack published by the Manx Her
itage Foundation, 1991.

  14 Angus Martin, The Ring-Net Fishermen, Edinburgh, 1981.

  15 Angus Martin, ‘The Campbeltown Fishing Industry’, in The Campbeltown Book, Kintyre Civic Society, 2003.

  16 As quoted by Martin, op. cit., 1981.

  17 Angus Martin, The North Herring Fishing, Isle of Colonsay, 2001, recounts stories of fishermen berthing there in the 1950s.

  18 Martin, op. cit., 1981.

  19 See Mike Smylie, The Slopemasts, a History of the Lochfyne Skiffs, Stroud, 2008, for a history of these craft.

  3

  THE CROFTER-FISHERMEN OF SCOTLAND

  Nowhere in the British Isles was fishing so vital to the economic well-being of the people than in Shetland.1 The islands don’t lend themselves to much land-based productivity but being close to rich fishing grounds it’s hardly surprising that it was seaward that the inhabitants went in search of food. Shetland also remained the last bastion of the crofter-fisherman up to and just after the Second World War.

  Before the eighteenth century when much of Shetland’s fishery was controlled by German merchants, the fishermen would take themselves up to some 10 miles offshore in their four-oared boats (fourereens) and set long lines for cod and ling. This became known as the ‘haaf fishery’ – ‘haaf’ meaning deep sea in Old Norse. One of the earliest records of this was written by Captain James Smith who sailed there in 1633 and found the Hanseatic merchants from Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen, as well as merchants from Scotland and England buying cod and ling. The Shetlanders were fishing in the yoles ‘two or three leagues’ off the coast, returning each day with sixty or seventy fish. Ling sold at threepence a pound and cod twopence. Smith loaded 11,655 ling and 834 gild cod which were salted aboard and then taken to London.2

  By the eighteenth century it seems that many tenants were paying their rents in kind – fish, butter, fish-oil and woollen stockings – and thus the lairds became traders, filling in the gap left by the Germans, so that they could raise coinage to pay their taxes, etc. Before long the lairds had then taken to buying the fish directly from their tenants thus enabling them to pay rent in cash. However, it was often the case that the fishermen didn’t know the price they would receive for their fish until well after the end of the season, and even then they had to wait at least to November for the cured fish to be sold and to receive any money.3 The long and the short of this was that eventually the lairds demanded participation from the fishermen in the haaf fishery, as part of the tenure of their homes. ‘No fishing, no home’ and many were evicted. This in fact was a truck system in which the tenant was paid in vouchers or tokens that were only redeemable in the shops belonging to the laird so that they gained in every sense of the word ‘capitalism’. If indeed the men had been paid in cash then they probably would have been able to purchase twice as much from local suppliers. The fishermen were, in reality, cheated by the employers, as happened in many other industries. Although Parliament passed an Act in 1831 making this system illegal, it did not apply to the Scottish haaf fishers. Nothing was to change in over half a century.

  The haaf fishery began traditionally on Beltane Day (1 May) and continued up to Lammas Day (1 August) although the fishing seasons changed and some years they started ‘from the month of March and gave it up on 12th June’.4 Beach huts or lodgings were set up around the Shetland coast upon suitable shingle beaches where boats could be drawn up, with access to the ocean. These were mostly on the outlying areas of Shetland: around Sumburgh in the south and upon Unst to the north with several on the west side of the Mainland and the odd few on Bressay, Whalsay and Fetlar. In all forty-one such haaf stations, including one each on Fair Isle and Foula, have been identified.5 Fishermen slept side by side with the curers, gutting folk, boys, old men and agents and remained at the station throughout the season. They would fish in their bigger six-oared boats – sixareens – sailing out some 30 miles offshore, to the edge of the continental shelf, to set their lines where the best ling were to be found. These lines could be 6 or 7 miles long and were left down overnight, which meant the fishermen had to sleep in the boat. Sometimes they stayed out three days, hauling and then reshooting the lines, meaning at least two days sleeping in the bottom of the boat, with only the sail for shelter, no mean feat in an open boat out of sight of the land. But these fellows were among the most experienced boatmen in the British Isles, being able to forecast the weather by simply watching the waves and cloud formations. They needed to be, to survive in these conditions. Piltocks were caught at the start of the trip which they used as bait.6

  Once they had returned to the haaf station, the fish were unloaded, weighed and salted by the curers who would have been ready and waiting, though they often handed the gutting job to ‘beach boys’ and older men.7 Often the fish were dried on the stones in the natural sunlight. The fishermen themselves didn’t rest and they had to take their smaller boats out to catch bait – usually young saithe or herring.

  The sixareen boats were indeed remnants from the Viking age. Norway was almost nearer than Scotland – certainly nearer than, say, Aberdeen and given that Shetland remained part of the Norse kingdom until 1469 when they were returned to Scottish control as part of the dowry of a Danish princess to her betrothed Scotsman, it is not surprising that Norseness influenced much of island life. Trees are rare on the islands and domestic timber was imported from Norway. However, contrary to this, boats were imported in kit form and assembled – a fifteenth-century version of IKEA maybe – and these, too, were of Scandinavian design. Furthermore, in true Viking fashion, the boats are all referred to by the number of oars in the Norwegian way.

  Double-ended Shetland boats. These smaller boats were used for the inshore fishery whereas the larger sixareens, although similar in shape, sailed out into deep water away from the coast.

  In 1774, an average sixareen was 20ft in length and open. They set one mast with a squaresail for the journey out to the fishing grounds, though this was later replaced with a dipping lugsail around the beginning of the nineteenth century when they were being built on Shetland by home-based boatbuilders and were up to 35ft in length.8 Nevertheless, the timber was still imported from Norway. The boats were clinker-built using wide green planks of Norwegian fir on sawn oak frames, or bands as they were called in Shetland, fastened with iron nails. In Viking tradition, the bands were not fixed to the keel, only the garboard planks, so that the keel could easily be renewed if worn through being dragged over rough beaches.

  The fishermen usually undertook two voyages a week over the normal twelve-week season. Sunday remained a day of no labour though some ignored this. It was advocated that Parliament prescribe a rule for this: ‘That all nets shall be hauled before one o’clock on Sunday morning; and that no nets shall be wet before one o’clock on Monday morning.’9 Shetland was the main European source for ling and, just as Captain Smith sailed away with a much higher amount of ling than cod, so was the case up to the end of the haaf fishery in the 1880s as the herring fishery gained ascendancy. Cod was available from Norway, Iceland and Newfoundland whereas ling was not.

  However, according to Coull, a cod smack fishery was based in Shetland in the nineteenth century and a hundred smacks were once based in Shetland with over 1,000 men engaged in it. These boats sailed up to the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Rockall. The fish were salted aboard the vessels and then dried on the beaches once landed back to the cod bases dotted around the Shetland coast or in inner Shetland.10

  The crew of the sixareens tended to share their earnings equally though the skipper might have a bit extra. Boys would only receive a half share as was normal throughout fishing communities everywhere. But there were big differences of pay structure between island and island. Whereas the haaf fishermen only received tokens for their fish, Donald Moar of Gloup, North Yell, reported to the Royal Commission that he received half the fish he caught, the other half going to the boat owner in what was known as the half-catch system. After the cod and ling fishery he went to the h
erring fishery until September, a fishery which was booming at the time of the Commission in 1883, chaired by Lord Napier and set up to specifically inquire into the conditions of the crofters. During the winter he cared for his croft and repaired his fishing gear. The croft was considered something to fall back upon during the lean months and potatoes were the main crop though they did grow grain. Donald Moar had three cows and six ponies but no sheep and his family looked after the croft while he was away at the fishing. He paid his rent from the earnings of his fish.11

  Gloup seriously suffered after the storm disaster of 20–21 July 1881 when fifty-eight fishermen, thirty-six from the village, were drowned and ten sixareens were lost, another example of the harsh conditions these men had to work in. Thirty-four widows and fifty-eight orphans were left behind. One century later a memorial was erected in Gloup with the names of the fishermen etched into stone. Sadly, the British coast, and especially that of Scotland, is littered with such commemorative structures. The Shetland Times ran the story of one survivor:

  A fleet of about 30 boats was at sea the night of the disaster, 26 from the north half of Yell, most of them from Gloup, with others from places such as Gutcher and as far south as Whalfirth (near Mid Yell.) There were a few among the number out from Unst and Feideland. The night was very fine, and we went off from the land about 20 miles, though it is difficult to recollect the distance after so long an interval of time.

  The storm struck us suddenly, and as soon as it struck we were in a fearful sea, and in darkness, in spite of it being the month of July. In our boat we held to our lines and did not leave our position till we had got all our lines on board. We then set sail and turned for home, sailing before the wind. In such a sea it was necessary to steer for each wave, veering away from side to side according to the precise direction from which the wave pursued us. Two men stood by the sail (a square sail) in order to handle it, both for the veering, and because, if a sea threatened to break over us, the skipper would make them lower the sail, thus easing the boat and allowing the wave to go past us before breaking.