Salmon fishing rights in Scotland are private heritable titles that are registered separately from land. As such these titles can be bought and sold like any other property.
In Scotland, the cost of the local administration, protection and improvement of the fisheries is privately financed by the proprietors. The district boards finance their work by levying a rate on the salmon fishery owners in the district. Elected representatives of those owners provide the core of the membership of the Board. However, since 1986, the boards are required also to include representatives of salmon anglers and salmon netsmen in the district. A further revision to the constitution of the Boards was made in 1999 to allow for even wider representation on the boards by other parties who may have an interest or stake in salmon stocks or fisheries.
The powers and duties of a DSFB are summarised below.
George Gourlay
GM Thomson & Company
35 Buccleuch Street
Dumfries
DG1 2AB
Chairman: R Bellamy
Treasurer: see clerk details above
Upper Proprietors: Angus Ferguson, A J Graham (Tony), W G N Gourlay, D Biggar, Gordon Kerr (representing Chips Keswick)
Angling Associations: K Irvine (CDAA), W Marshall (DAA)
Invitees – Galloway Fisheries Trust and SEPA
Date and location of next meeting: The board meeting due to be held on the 21st of November has been postponed until further notice.
Salmon season: 15th March – 30th November (no salmon fishing on a Sunday).
All river rules for the Urr can be found in the download section in the document "Rules of the River 2018".
Galloway Fisheries Trust is looking to recruit a new Fisheries Biologist to join our team. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to take a lead role in many of the GFT research, monitoring and restoration programmes. This is a full time permanent post.
The aims of this project are to improve both instream and riparian habitats for both salmonids and freshwater pearl mussels; freshwater pearl mussels are now a critically endangered species and there are very few known populations remaining in Scotland.
This sparling themed community engagement and education drive project, supported by the Co-op local community fund, has been a sucess this spring (even though the sparling eluded us).