fishing

Fishing

An experience of fishing in Applecross in the early 1940s,

Duncan John Gillies

“I started going out on the herring boats in about 1942 or 1943 during my summer holidays from school, I would have been about 15 or 16. I went out on the Annabel; she was owned by the Gillieses from Kyle – they were originally from Ardubh, in Applecross, and were actually my distant cousins. The summer was when the herring fishing was best. There were five on the boat including me, the others were Donnie Gillies, Norman Gillies and Kenny Gillies (“the Ficure’s” sons) and one other crewman from Kyle. The drift net herring boats worked in pairs and our partner was the Seonaid. The Seonaid was owned by Norman Beaton, originally from Uags, but by the time I worked on the boats he lived in Kyle and was an old man. He didn’t go out on the boat himself any more. The crew of the Seonaid were Norman’s brother Angus Beaton (a short, very stocky and immensely strong man), and 4 from Applecross - Kennan (Kenny MacLean, my uncle by marriage), Danny “Bhachuil” (MacRae), Colin Gordon and Ian Ali Bheag (MacLeod).

We would go out on the Monday and spend the week fishing, coming back on the Friday evening, or the Saturday if the fishing was going well. We would fish all round the coast of Skye, and along the east coast of the outer isles – North Uist, Harris and Lewis. Sometimes we would go across to the coast of Sutherland. The fishermen all had walkie-talkies so that the boats working in partnership could talk to one another. We would listen in to what was being said and if we heard the fishermen off the coast of Sutherland saying there was a lot of herring there we would go over.

To find the herring there were a couple of techniques. Someone would sit in the stern with a long line, weighted at the end, trailing in the water behind the boat, and they could tell by the vibrations on the line if it was passing through a shoal of herring. At night, if it was calm, you could listen for the fish playing in the water – they would be splashing and you could hear the sound which would travel a long way on a still night. In the daylight you could sometimes see them playing on the surface, although not if it was windy. You could also watch for the solan geese diving for the herring, or sometimes the seagulls would go for them if they were near the surface. You could even tell how deep the herring were by watching the solan geese – if they were diving at a shallow angle the herring were near the surface but the closer the angle of the dive was to the vertical, the deeper the herring were.

When it was time to fish one boat would set the net putting a buoy at one end then sailing in a semi-circle paying out the net behind them. The net consisted of a large ‘pouch’ or bag like section in the centre, with two straight sections on either side – the ‘wings’. When the net  was fully out the second boat would pick up the end of the net with the buoy on it and the two boats would sail parallel to each other for a short while to try to catch some fish in the ‘pouch’, then they would come together until they were only about a yard apart. Now came the dangerous bit – three of the men from the second boat would leap across to the first boat with their end of the net. This could be very dangerous in stormy weather. I remember sometimes when the two boats were only a cable length (200 yards) apart you couldn’t even see the other boat except when we both happened to be at the top of a wave. The jump must have been quite hard for the older men although I didn’t think about it at the time. I remember Danny Bhachuil doing it and he must have been in his late fifties. I never heard of anyone from Applecross falling in, the only incident of anyone falling was a Skyeman. You had to wait until both boats were either at the top of a wave or at the bottom before you jumped.

Once you were aboard the first ship you hauled in the net. One end was attached to the power winch at the stern of the boat, but the other was hauled manually by three men at the bow. You had to haul in the ‘wings’ of the net until the ‘pouch’ was alongside the boat. The men hauling at the bow had a strenuous job but at the stern you also needed someone to keep the strain on the net as it fed into the winch, and Kennan, one of our crew, had lost the top part of his middle finger doing this. Once the centre part of the net with the fish, was alongside it had to be hauled into the hold of the boat. This was done manually but if there was a large catch of fish you could raise a mast and use a power winch. The catch was extremely variable. I have heard of occasions when one haul filled both boats. The biggest single catch I remember was about 60 crans. A cran is actually a Gaelic word which has entered the English language through the herring fishing. It was originally equal to one barrel of herring, and is defined as 37 ½ gallons, on average 750 fish. Crann, the Gaelic word, originally means tree, and can mean any wooden object or a ‘lot’ or share. In my time a cran was equal to 4 boxes of fish, which was 28 stone.

If we had a really good haul and the hold was nearly full we would go straight to port, otherwise we would aim to get to port by about 6 am every day to get the fresh herring landed in time for the lorries which would take them south. Mostly we went to Gairloch because that was the nearest port, or else we would go to Kyle or sometimes even Ullapool if we were fishing further north. 

There was a fixed price for herring at that time – fixed by the government. We were paid on a share basis, so the profits were split into 7 shares – one for the nets and one for the boat (ie two for the owner(s)), and one for each of the crew. You could earn big money but on the other hand you could quite frequently come home after a week’s fishing with absolutely nothing. On the whole though it was good money, I remember sometimes earning £70-80 in one week which was incredibly good money for a schoolboy in the 1940s. The only herring boats based in Applecross at that time were the Isa and the Truelove (moored in PollCreadha). The Isa was owned and operated by the Camerons, who still fish out of Applecross though not for herring. They sold the Isa a few years ago. I remember once meeting up with the crew of the Isa – Donald Cameron, Ali Cameron, Stoumpie, etc) - when I was at university in Glasgow – they had sailed down from Applecross to the Clyde, entered the Forth-Clyde canal at bowling and sailed up the canal to Port Dundas Street in Glasgow for an engine refit. The Truelove was owned by three families originally from Harris – Finlay MacLeod, “the Brock” (John MacLeod) and Kenny Martin (from Coilliegillie).

There were lots of other boats from the east coast fishing in the same area, many from Hopeman in Moray I remember, and after the war a few Spanish trawlers began to appear, though not in as great numbers as they did later.

There was also white fishing going on, for cod, lithe, etc. My father Alister Gillies owned the Bella before the war. The boats fished individually setting static nets on reefs or close to the shore, rather than drift netting. They went over to Raasay, Skye, Gairloch, even as far as Mallaig. They went out at 5 or 5.30 am and were often back in the late morning to work their crofts. The nets were weighted down and had glass balls as floats. They used a hand winch to pull the nets which was extremely hard work. I remember going out in the ‘Morag’ with my uncle Colin. You couldn’t earn the same sort of money doing the white fishing but it had the advantage that you didn’t have to be away all week – you could be back the same day to work your croft.

Although the herring fishing was done for selling we always salted a barrel ourselves for food at home throughout the winter.” - as told by Duncan John Gillies, January 2002. Transcribed by Alan Gillies.

The history of fishing in Applecross

Fishing has been an important activity in Applecross for at least 8,000 years. We know this from recent archaeological excavations which have found fish bones (primarily ‘otoliths’, ie ear bones, which apparently survive best!) in a Mesolithic rubbish dump at Sand. The type of fish caught have been identified as saithe, pollack, cod, wrasse and haddock.

But until relatively recently fishing in Applecross, as in most of the Western Highlands of Scotland, was a small scale activity, carried out by local people to supplement their diet rather than as a full time occupation. Attempts to turn fishing into an industry to provide employment for the people began in the late 18th century after the crushing of last Jacobite rebellion and the end of the clan system. The development of a fishing industry in the north west of Scotland was seen as a way of bringing the ‘natives’ of the area into a more modern and civilised way of life, and fishing stations and villages were established by paternalistic landlords to encourage the industry. More subtle methods were also used. Patrick Sellar the notorious factor in charge of the clearances in Sutherland, wrote in 1815 ‘Lord and Lady Stafford were pleased humanely to order a new arrangement of this country. That the interior should be possessed by Cheviot shepherds and the people be brought down to the coast and placed there in lotts under the size of three arable acres, sufficient for the maintenance of an industrious family but pinched enough to cause them turn their attention to the fishing.’ He went further and explained the philosophy behind such a ‘humane’ action – it was ‘to put these barbarous hordes into a position where they could better associate together, apply to industry, educate their children, and advance in civilisation.’ In the middle of the nineteenth century the authorities trying to deal with the problem of the potato famine in the Highlands also felt that fishing was a good industry to encourage. But they distinguished between the herring fishing, which they decided should not be encouraged as it was seasonal and therefore ‘not calculated to promote the habits of industry’, and the white fishing which should be encouraged as it required ‘more patient and continuous industry’.

In 1792 the Applecross Parish minister noted that ‘fishing is a favourite occupation of the people of the parish. They derive much of their sustenance form the sea’. He stated that white fish were caught ‘either to gratify the desire or relieve the necessities of the present moment’ but were not exported from the parish. Herring were another matter, they ‘frequently enter all or bays, creeks and harbours,’ he reported, and being ‘a favourite dish not only for exportation but for home consumption, it is in all seasons greedily pursued.’ The herring were exported primarily to Oban and Greenock. Each tenant generally had a boat, ‘and among the lower classes, either two, three or four make a joint purchase according as their circumstances will permit’. These were usually small boats, but there were also 5 vessels of from 20 to 40 tons employed in the fishing, ‘one of which belongs to a fishing company, founded at a considerable expense by Mr McKenzie of Firdon…  the patriotic exertions of this gentlemen merit much praise’.

Herring travel in large shoals and tended to come and go very quickly, so that the situation varied between a huge oversupply and an absolute absence. In Lochcarron in 1791 there were so many herring that the children were wading in to the sea at low tide and catching them in their laps, and in Kintail there were complaints that although a huge number of herring were landed the local people couldn’t get any salt to preserve them so they went to waste. Other years, however, there were only enough for local consumption. In Avoch, Easter Ross, 5 or 6 thousand barrels of herring were caught and exported in 1786-7, but between then and 1792 there was ‘little more than supplied local people’. The reason was that the smaller boats which most of the people used were too small for fishing in deeper water, so they relied on the fish coming into the ‘bays, creeks and harbours’.

In the 19th century the fishing industry expanded greatly, but it was concentrated on the ports on the other side of Scotland from Applecross, in places like Banff in the north east. The people of Applecross did share in the wealth created by the industry, working as crewmen for the east coast fishing boats.

During the potato famine in the Highlands in the late 1840s the fishing industry allowed many of the people to avoid destitution. In 1847 it was reported by the ‘Destitution Committee of Applecross’ that ‘almost all the young men go to the east coast fishing, and find also other employment there till the season when fishing on the west coast commences, when most of them return.’ The situation for those remaining was described thus ‘The entire cottar population is already in great distress – it may be said on the verge of famine – and crowd around me with application for relief… It is certain that our system [of relief] must come into operation very shortly but I endeavour to stave it off as long as I can… The public cannot forever be supporting them – Alas! I feel what a fallacy I am uttering in applying this general unquestionable truth to them, what can they do to support themselves where all kinds of employment are wanting? What hope is there that any produce of the ground should be in their possession when in the first place few of them had this year any to plant or sow, and in the second if they had it is but well known that the weather destroyed their corn and the rot their potatoes.’ There were two ways in which fishing was used by the relief agency: (i) as part of the ‘labour test’ those receiving food had to do some work for it and many men were set the task of making nets; and (ii) the fishing industry itself was encouraged by providing nets, lines, piers and training. In May 1847 the Applecross Destitution Committee reported that ‘The people are most anxious to engage in the fishing and on hearing that there was a probability of their being supplied with lines no fewer number than 68 long lines and 52 small lines have been applied for.’

Between 1850 and 1880 the West coast herring fishing industry experienced a spectacular expansion – the number of barrels cured rose from 80,000 to 180,000 per annum. Nearly all the boats and gear were owned by east coast fishermen, but each boat employed one or two local west coast men as crew, so that incomes in places like Applecross did rise. In 1884 the Napier Commission felt that more income came to the crofters from the sea than from the land, and by 1902 it was estimated that in Lewis the average crofting family earned £3 a year from the land and £25 from fishing.

This income allowed some west coast fishermen to obtain their own boats, and many fitted paraffin engines in the early 1900s. But  the situation started to go downhill fairly quickly. First of all the introduction of modern steam drifters led to a decline in the number of crew needed, then after the first world war the biggest market for the herring, central and eastern Europe, ceased to exist due to the Russian revolution and various trade embargoes. Herring fishing by west coast boats gradually declined and in the 1930s many of the boats built in the early 1900s became too old and went out of service. Fishing continued during and after the war, and until the present day, but on a much smaller scale.

Of course fishing for home consumption continued all through the ups and downs of the fishing industry. In 1812 the local innkeeper at Applecross was accused by the Kirk Session of having his fishing net set on the Sabbath. He neatly side-stepped the accusation by blaming his maid, who, he said, had forgotten to take it in as she had been told to do. The maid was ordered to be either fined or publicly reprimanded before the congregation. Until very recently nearly every inhabitant of Applecross put out a net to catch fish for the table.

Alan Gillies