Fishing (continued)

The huge fleet of little skiffs flourished, expanded and prospered all over the West Coast waters. In 1886 there were 66 boats employing 272 men anchored in the harbour and it is said you could walk from one side to the other over the moored boats. The population of Tarbert swelled to 2000 in the closing years of the 19th century and seasonally this was added to by the travelling “herring girls” who followed the shoals from port to port. This female army assembled on the Fish Quay at the height of the Loch Fyne season to gut, salt and pack the catches in barrels as swiftly as possible so that the Scottish Fisheries Crown Brand could be stamped on the barrel to guarantee it had been packed within 24 hours of the herring being caught.

Herring Screws
Speed of transportation to market was essential. The usual method was for the barrels to be transported onwards by packet steamer to Glasgow. Again the Tarbert fleet devised a more efficient method. Bigger vessels known as herring screws bought the catches direct from the skiffs while at sea in Loch Fyne and steamed straight for the rail heads at Fairley or Glasgow. A fresh herring could be on the plate in London or Liverpool in less than 24 hours. There were 6 ’screws’ servicing the Tarbert fleet in 1885 and the turn of the century saw the village blossom as the capital of Herringdom.

White Fish
Often the silver shoals were scarce, disappearing for whole seasons, and Tarbert’s fishermen, ever resilient and tenacious, would pursue other catches in lean years. Line fishing for white fish gave way to the seine net for haddock, cod, hake, plaice and whiting which were in abundance in Loch Fyne waters. Markets developed from the 1950s onwards as road transport and access to ice for preserving improved and new catches became viable.

Scallops and Prawns
Scallop dredging and trawling for prawns steadily increased as the markets and infrastructure developed. At a time when the herring was fluctuating and slowly dwindling, scallops and prawns became Tarbert’s main fisheries alongside a winter whitefish season. In the 1960s and 1970s there was a huge queen scallop fishery in the Loch and a processing factory was established in the village. It was a major employer. The two permanent Shell Beaches at the end of the Pier Road are a memorial to its size and impact. This factory continued for many years, adapting its processes to accommodate scallops, prawns and eventually salmon.

These were good times for the village. As the fishing connections prospered, new transport and chandlery businesses sprang up. The herring connection still flourished with smokehouses – 5 of them in the good years – continuing the market for the famous Loch Fyne Kipper. These smokehouses continued successfully right through until the 1980s but by then the boom times were past and the herring fishing was completely seasonal, governed by quotas and carried out by pair trawling

Today, prawns, scallops, lobsters and crabs are the main catches landed at the modern Fish Quay. They come from brightly coloured trawlers and creel boats equipped with the latest in technical gear and fish-finding computers. The neat brown skiffs may be gone but many of the names and numbers on the bows of the 21st century fleet celebrate the long heritage and continuing aspirations of Tarbert’s fishermen. More information about traditional timber boats and ring net boats can be found on www.clydefishermenstrust.com, www.shemaron.co.uk and www.castingthenet.scot