From its source deep in the hills in South Lanarkshire, the River Clyde takes its 106 miles twisting, meandering journey under bridges, down waterfalls and over tunnels, flowing fast alongside well-travelled roads and powering by great buildings.

At the mouth of its estuary at Dumbarton, it spills into the Firth of Clyde, deep waters lapping the docks at Greenock where boats once offloaded exotic goods from Africa, splashing against the seaside fronts of Largs and Ayr, and carrying ferries full of visitors to the islands of Bute and Arran, Cumbrae, Islay and Jura.

For countless centuries, the towns and villages that cling to the river, overlook its estuary and beyond into Firth of Clyde have leaned heavily on it to provide.

(Image: Roz Trudgon)

It did so in abundance, supporting shipbuilding and cargoes of sugar and spices, transporting tourists and whisky from the islands and delivering its greatest natural asset, fish.

In a fishing frenzy that spanned generations who took to the water in primitive boats with oars and sails, then Skaffies, Fifies and Zulus, eventually steam boats, puffers and trawlers, the Firth of Clyde,  extending over 100km in west coast waters and up to 164m deep in places, shared its harvest until, tragically, there was almost no more to give.

Drained of its once bountiful supplies, the demise of the Firth of Clyde’s fishing stocks is a sobering lesson in how a seemingly inexhaustible source can, in the blink of an evolutionary eye, slide into near extinction.

For the small communities built on the back of the mighty Clyde, the thought it might one day be almost starved of fish would have been unthinkable.

Such as places like Govan, in the 16th century a small farming village that took full advantage of the salmon that were easily netted on the doorstep.

Rivalry and demand for the king of fish saw boundary stones stretching from Rutherglen to Braehead to mark where individual fisheries could operate.

Some of the better off had easy access to salmon: in 1851, a “desirable residence” in Govan was on sale, with 19 acres of land, two pews reserved in Govan Parish Church and rights to salmon fishing in the Clyde.

Eventually pollution and manmade barriers like weirs, tunnels and culverts would spark a dreadful demise in salmon numbers.

And even though pollution would eventually be tackled, unpicking the obstacles that halt salmon’s progress to their spawning grounds has been compounded by modern challenges from climate change to invasive species.

The plight of salmon, though, is only part of the Clyde’s story…

As soon as the first boats were crafted, the Firth of Clyde with its diverse species and plentiful fish, was at the mercy of fishermen.

(Image: River Tweed Commission)

At first, of course, their haul would be of little consequence to the huge stocks of herring, cod, haddock, turbot and flounder that shared the chilly west coast water with dolphins, orcas and sharks.

For they were simpler days of line fishing: trailing a line set with bait hooks behind their boat as they followed seabirds to where shoals of herring lurked.

Eventually new kinds of nets, a threat from the continent and the dawn of the industrial revolution would alter fishing forever.

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During the 17th and 18th century, the highly organised Dutch commercial herring fishing industry had brought their ‘herring busses’, large vessels which stayed at sea for long periods curing herring on board using their closely guarded ‘Dutch cure’ method.

Accompanied by support vessels, they caught and processed large quantities of herring on the go, giving them control over the European salt herring market.

In response, the British Fishery Society formed in the mid-18th century to develop fishing ports and develop a home-grown herring fleet and processing infrastructure to challenge the Dutch stronghold.

(Image: Denise Gurden)

Meanwhile, the shift to using the new seine net emerged in 1838. It allowed fishers to encircle and trap a shoal and draw the net tight to prevent their escape.

Before long, the industrial revolution ignited even more change. Curing methods improved and, significantly, steam-power enabled boats to travel further, and nets cast deeper.

Traditional vessels like scaffies, baldies, Zulus and Fifies were elbowed out by more powerful ones that could better handle rough seas and motorised winches that could haul on board ever more fish.

Any cured fish not good enough for home and European markets were shipped to the West Indies to be fed to slaves; a process considered more efficient than having them eat the very crops they laboured hard to grow.

While on the horizon were petrol and paraffin engines, bigger vessels with heavier fishing gear, trawler nets and motorised winches bringing more capacity and better profits.

Fishing villages and coastal towns boomed: Greenock expanded on the back of constructing fishing busses and Gourock became the first place in Great Britain to cure herring.

Coopers made the fish barrels, squadrons of carters transported the goods, net and ropemakers were in demand and armies of fishwives and herring lassies went to work gutting, prepping and selling.

The Firth’s plankton rich waters, sea lochs and shallow banks attracted a host of other species fish alongside herring. They, in turn, lured predators like whales and porpoises, dogfish and sea birds.

Old fishing boats, once a common sight, tied up at Anstruther Harbour in Fife

Indeed, there were so many basking sharks, that smaller coastal industries emerged to make use of their oil.

The scale of catches was immense: herring were sold by the cran, a measure which could contain up to 2500 fish.

A single barrel of pickled and cured herring could easily account for more than 260 pounds of fish. And barrels were piled hundreds high on quaysides.

Exeter University researchers Ruth Thurstan and Callum Roberts, whose 2010 report entitled Ecological Meltdown in the Firth of Clyde: Two Centuries of Change in a Marine Ecosystem documented the rise and fall of its fishing industry, told how in 1750 it was estimated that up to 20,000 barrels of herring were caught by the Clyde boats.

In 1755, the value of herring exported from Campbeltown alone was nearly £16,000, with other ports exporting even more.

“Large vessels from the east coast of Scotland travelled to the Firth of Clyde to exploit fisheries other than herring, such as flatfish,” says their report.

“Skate were also regularly caught. The catch per unit effort for line fisheries could be very high, one account stating that a catch of 350 fish for 400 hooks was not an unusual occurrence.”

Cod and ling were taken in huge quantities. Turbot, mackerel, whiting and flounder fisheries were in abundance.

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But as far back as the mid-19th century concern was emerging over the scale of fishing.

The introduction of the seine net had led to high numbers of herring captured, including juveniles.

By the 1860s one of the richest herring fishery grounds, Ballantrae Bank, was ordered to close for months at a time to protect spawning herring.

The decision to lift the restriction after seven years ignited debate further: seine nets could take hauls of more than 200,000 fish, beam trawling which scooped fish from the sea floor was detrimental to the seabed.

One boat owner in 1887 warned that “if beam trawling is allowed to go on unchecked, the chief fishing banks in the Clyde (already greatly exhausted) will soon be so destroyed that for many years the yield will not meet the working expenses’’.

The words would prove devastatingly accurate…

There were efforts to contain the scale of fishing: rules introduced in 1889 meant trawling vessels of more than eight tonnes could not fish within three nautical miles of the coast.

Trawling beyond that limit continued: annual landings of herring between 1900 and 1940 from the Firth of Clyde were typically 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes per year, reaching a peak between the late 1950s and mid-1960s. 

(Image: DAVID DUGGLEBY AUCTIONEERS)

New technology such as echo sounders made it easier than ever for boats to find their prey. 

As herring declined, attention turned to cod and other species. Soon they too would be in trouble.

Yet in the 1960s, with demand from consumers and the industry running high and fishing contributing heavily to the economy, the Government of the day opted to allow boats back to coastal areas not fished for decades.

The intensity of fishing and use of demersal trawling which enabled fishing in more rugged areas, sent fish stocks into a downward spiral. By the 1990s, the Clyde’s fishing industry was said to be severely depleted.

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“The evidence suggests that trawl closures helped maintain productive fisheries through the mid-20th century, and their reopening precipitated collapse of bottomfish stocks,” states the Exeter University researchers’ report.

“Long before the current fishery problems in the Clyde emerged, it was clear to late 19th century fisheries scientists that the Clyde ecosystem needed protection from overexploitation and damage by fishing gear.

“The story of the Firth of Clyde is emblematic of wide experience

in world fisheries. It illustrates how opportunity and necessity have

driven fisheries’ expansion and innovation, first to increase catches,

then to sustain them even as fish populations fell.”

These days a smaller fishing industry trawls for shrimp, langoustine, scallop and prawns.

And since 2001, a specific area in the Firth of Clyde has been closed to fishing each year from mid-February and late April to protect spawning cod.

That’s led to signs some fish populations are slowly recovering: University of Aberdeen led research from 2021  however, revealed sprat to be the dominant species, instead of herring.

 

The Clyde’s halcyon fishing days are gone, but carefully handled, there may be new opportunities: the sprat form a key part of the marine food chain, vital for larger fish such as whales, dolphins and sharks.

That opens the door to tourism potential, such as whale watching.

At the time Professor Paul Fernandes, a fisheries scientist at the University’s School of Biological Sciences, who supervised the study, echoed the warnings of scientists and fishers from the golden age of the Clyde.

“The key,” he said, “will be to do this responsibly to ensure a long-term future for the Clyde’s historic seafaring community.”