124491: Murdo Maclennan of Marvig

Murchadh Aonghais Dhòmhnaill

Murdo Maclennan of Marvig 

Aig an Obair Murchadh Aonghais Dhòmhnaill

I started fishing with small nets and we used to get haddock and cuddies. With the bigger nets we used to get cod, ling and skate.

With the big boat we used to fish with the bigger nets in February and March, doing the spring work then, painting and putting the nets in order, before the summer fishing started on the 10th of May. We would expect the fishing to finish in September. We would then have a month off for harvest work, then winter fishing, sometimes fishing in England at the end  of October and November.

I once went to Yarmouth for ten weeks, I went there before the winter fishing began at home. I also spent time on the boats in Fraserburgh, Peterhead and Nairn when we weren't out with the boat. The long lines would be in a  basket with 100 hooks in each basket, 1500 hooks overall. Just think of how much baiting hooks that was every day.

Casting the lines about two o'clock in the morning and pulling them from daybreak  until three o'clock in the afternoon. We would only have a mug of tea during that time. We would eat our meal when we stopped pulling, and steaming to Stornoway most often. I remember, we bought a boat from a man in Badachro and it was in the contract that he would get the boat for one more season, in February. We accepted that, but our crew had to be on it. We fished for coalfish in February with weighted bottom lines and a glass float to hold them afloat. We would also catch hake, then ling and cod after that.

Fishing Marks

1) There was a mountain called the Sugar Loaf behind Lochinver and that had to be  in line with Eilean Handaidh. The Buckie fishermen called it 'stack over Handa'. With the seine netters, they would tell you where they saw herring 'Over stack over Handa'. That's a fishing mark sign, as the old men would  say.

2) Out to Tabhaigh in the winter, if Tabhaidh was in line with Roineval.

3) Go to Babyle, Ben Bharbhais and the Chicken Head, north or south of there according to the sea tide.

4) If you could line-up on  Solas an Tiumpan, on  Portvoller, that was our signal for the correct alignment.

Fish livers

One week while we were gutting the fish, we kept the fish livers. They needed careful handling or they would burst. We used to land them in Gairloch. But this time, if we went to Kyle, we were going to get six pence more per stone. We had 80 stones of cod roe including livers. Although there were two days when we could be fishing to get there, if we got the extra sixpence, we spent it in fuel by the time we got to Kyle.

Herring

Where there were gannets diving that was a sign that there were herring. The sharks and whales would also be good signs that there were shoals of herring around. Before the Echo Sounders came, we could see the oil on the surface of the sea, because the seagulls were  gathering there. The fulmars of St Kilda used to drink the oil, you could see them putting their beaks in it, now and again. Signs of nature that The Creator sent to the sea.

There were four baskets in a cran and six boxes in a cran. The Shiant Isles had big herring and the baskets could only hold twelve scores of them, big fish. They weren’t however available for very long. 

We would follow the fishing to Tolsta head, the Butt, An Stor and Eilean Handaidh and land the fish  in Ullapool. We had a diary of the dates and in these days the herring came at the same time every year.

Herring Ban

The Herring Ban was around 1976. They thought if you fished with a driftnet that you were fishing for salmon. The MP, Donald Stewart and Sandy  Matheson spoke on behalf of the fishermen here, in Holyrood House. Telling them that a herring net would not catch salmon. The scientists said that too many herring had been caught. Our boat, the Seafarer, spent a year anchored in the loch here. The Seafarer and the Constant Friend of Scadabay were the last two to fish for herring out of Stornoway. Our biggest catch ever, we caught 118 cran in Loch Erisort opposite Cromore and 100 cran from Loch Tuath. Leaving Loch Seaforth and steaming to Stornoway for four or five hours. There would be about twenty boats, it was lit up like a town with all the lights.

The first trip I went into Kylesku, the skipper of the Scalpay Isle said 'I'll flash the searchlights across the island, keep north of that'. That's what I did, I came in on the other side of the island into the bay and the other boats with the lights were there. We were coming to get the herring they had beyond their quota. The Scalpaigh boys on the ring netters would be very good to us. When they were full, they would call us by wireless. Once we steamed to Kylesku, with them being over their quota, we didn't have to cast our nets and returned with a full load of herring transferred across to us as they couldn’t land them.

Where the sea was shallow the ring netters couldn’t fish there. We had  drift nets. We would have 40-45 nets on board. The nets were twenty cubits long and six cubits deep. One summer when we were on the north end of the bank, south of Scalpay, there is a twelve mile ridge off there and there were a lot of herring.

On a beautiful night on that bank in Scalpay we were casting the nets close to each other. We could hear the fishermen on the Scalpay boats singing and praying during their evening worship. I had  become a practising Christian myself by then. On such a quiet night as we hear them praying and singing, you've never heard a such a beautiful sound.

The late Murdo Maclennan (age 92), speaking to  Maggie Smith in Gaelic, 2019.