Scottish east coast fishery

The Scottish east coast fishery has been in existence for more than a thousand years, spanning the Viking age right up to the present day.

The fishery has always been for both whitefish and herring. The Norsemen came to Scotland from the 9th to 11th centuries and settled in the Northern Isles, Western Isles and on the mainland. They had fish as a large part of their diet, and excavations of Viking sites in Orkney and Shetland have found middens (kitchen waste areas) containing large quantities of fish bones. These bones were mainly of cod, saithe and ling but herring, haddock and whiting bones were also found. They used the line fishing method with hooks and bait.

The Dutch had a near monopoly of the herring fishing from the 15th to the 17th centuries. The boats, called busses, were very large. They lay overnight with the drift nets set to catch the herring and were hauled by hand in the morning. The herring were salted and placed in barrels. These barrels were then transferred to small boats called jagers, which were tenders to the busses. These boats took the fish to the markets.

The 18th century saw some Scottish fishermen emulate this Dutch method of fishing. In 1718, the government introduced the bounty system to promote large scale fishing. This meant that the government paid a bounty to the boat owner based on the tonnage of the vessel and would also pay a bounty to anyone for simply building a fishing boat. This continued until 1820 and did much to encourage the growth of the fishery. The fishery was valuable and the fleets often came under attack from French and Spanish privateers. Because of this, armed ships were employed to accompany and defend the fishing boats. Despite this, the Dutch style of fishing didn’t produce the results the government wanted. The bulk of the Scottish fishery was still using the line and bait method in inshore waters. However, in 1785 the government instituted barrel bounties, which meant that the bounties were payable based on the amount of cured herring produced. This encouraged the herring curers to enter into contracts with the fishermen whereby they would be guaranteed a price for their catch.

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Wikipedia