bullet2 Fish (15)


Of the several sort offish taken in this shire, as well in the fresh rivers as the sea coasts, and of the great plenty thereof.


CHAPTER 15


Having spoken of the salt islands of this county environed with the sea, it follows aptly in this place to speak of the fish which is yearly taken in the main sea, the creeks and the arms thereof, and the fresh  rivers that pass through the county. For pond fish there are none, wherein I cannot but condemn our whole county of carelessness and sloth for that want, for of all the counties that ever I travelled, this soil yields most convenient places for fish ponds, and to be built with less cost and pain, for in all or most parts or parishes of the shire, there are fine and sweet springs running in small little valleys, as if worn by their course, not deep but broad and shallow, not headlong or steep but almost on plain ground, the springs not too great whereby the violence might break the dam heads, but sufficient to maintain a pond where there needs nothing but the erecting of a head this county less than £5 charge would make a large fishpond which, beside the commodity of the fish, would prove commodious for watering and standing of cattle in parching seasons, as also a nursery for swans, a fowl that of all other, the county has least store, whereas I see in other counties £100 and more consumed in raising a fishpond and yet think the charge well bestowed. I mean not only the want of ponds of fresh fish but also those of salt water upon the sea coasts and creeks, which the ingenious minds of divers gentlemen in other counties have lately and rarely invented, where, by intruding upon Neptune's jurisdiction, they imprison in the salt water and fish, and bring the same subject to their command and commodity and in such sort as that they have ready at their call the bass, mullet, flukes, and plaices, sole, eels, whiting, sea smelts, crabs, shrimps, conger, gurnet, and divers other sorts of salt water fish, as it were in a park of wild fish. Of those kinds of salt ponds there are infinite apt and fit places, especially upon 5 all or most the creeks spread out on every side of Milford Haven.


But omitting that which we might have and have not, let me speak of that which we have and want not. The fishing of Pembrokeshire, as I have said  before in the seventh chapter, is one of the chiefest worldly commodities wherewithal God has blessed this county, which fishing are of divers sorts taken at divers times of the year and that at divers places. The names of some sorts most commonly taken in  this coast are these that I shall speak of, which I shall divide into four sorts, that is, river fish, sea fish, shell fish, and the three strange nature fishes.


And first in this place I will speak of the river fish, whereof the salmon shall have the first place, partly  for the plenty and store thereof taken in many parts and places of the county, but chiefly for the excellence and daintiness thereof, wherein it exceeds those of other counties. The principal place of taking thereof is in the river of Teifi, and there chiefly at Cilgerran where the chiefest weir of all Wales is to be seen, chargeably built of strong timber frames, and artificially wrought therein with stones crossing the whole river from side to side, having six slaughter places wherein the fish entering remain enclosed and  are therein killed with an iron crook proper for that use. There has been oftentimes taken 100-140 more or less in some day, the fish being most excellent, and for fatness and sweetness exceeding those of other rivers. There is also great store of this fish, as also of sewin, mullet and botcher (being all near of kin to the salmon) taken in the said river near St. Dogmael's in a seine net, drawn after every tide, as also in the river of Nevern at Newport where they take them in a draught net sometimes by the score at a draught, as also in salmon weirs whereof there are three or four upon the river. There are also store of salmon taken at Fishguard in the river Gwaun, and in both Cleddaus, the one coming up to Haverfordwest, the other to Slebech and Canaston, and in each of these places also store of sewin, salmon trout, mullet and botcher taken in the spring, which is their season. And one especial thing is to be noted of the salmon of the Teifi, that at all times in the year there are some found in season, yea even in the winter, when in most places they are found kipper, lean and unwholesome, there they are found new, fresh, fat and cruddy. Between All Saints and Christmas, this fish comes from the sea up the rivers and in the sandy places both the male and female are found in the night labouring to make beds with their snouts by heaping gravel and sand for their spawning place, and in this their business they are in the night time watched and, with lights of fire, drawn to wonder thereat while the fishers from the land with Neptune's weapon, the salmon spear, bereave them of their life, being then for the most part unwholesome and lean. It is said that this fish and the gosling concur in growth, meaning thereby that in one year they come to their full bigness. Giraldus says this fish is called salmo, a saliendo, because, says he, taking his tail in the mouth, becoming in form like a ring, with its strength at the loose mounts so high that it will cast itself up a great bank or rock, and does instance of a great steep rock to be at Cilgerran, wherein he was deceived, for the same indeed is at Cenarth, three miles above Cilgerran where the river falls over a perpendicular and steep rock of ten or twelve feet high, at which place the salmon are imagined to ascend for that they are found many miles in that river above that place, and therefore is said, that by this means, they cast themselves up that steep place, which they call the Salmon's Leap. This fish is best in season at its first coming from the sea, where it goes to wash itself and returns into the fresh river most bright and shining, fat and delicate, and the longer it travels up the river, beating itself against the banks, rocks and shelves, the leaner it goes. They are chiefly in season in the spring, and all the summer. This fish the sooner it be boiled after its taking, the more sweet and delicate  it proves in eating, whereas long keeping or carriage before boiling decays its sweetness, and therefore is said to be best when it is cast alive into the pan (the water being hot and boiling) where presently it crumps and turns up the corners and sides, waxing  red in colour, interlarding the red with white, cruddy, fat, that yields the meat very sweet in taste. A merry writer, likening the parts of this fish to a fair woman, says that about the jaws, the eyes and the belly are the sweetest parts of the salmon.    


The sewin,  botcher, mullet, salmon peal or salmon trout are synonymous and are all one, but differing in name, and are in form, taste and taking all one with the salmon, but lesser and shorter in eating than the salmon. Some men think they are the salmon indeed  but want in growth, but the best fishermen are of opinion that they are of several kinds and will never become a salmon. These if they be of several kinds yet are never found to come up the river to spawn nor to make spawning pits as the salmon do. Pliny shows  in his natural history that the old salmon is known pei duritiem squamarum, so the smaller, the brighter and thinner the scales of the salmon is, the younger you may judge the fish to be.


The trout of this county are nothing so good as  those that I have eaten in other counties, being white in colour, small and drier in eating, wanting fatness and growth, yet are there great store taken in every small brook and rill as also in the greater rivers. They come in, and are best in season, in March and April  and continue good all the summer. They are taken with the angle, wherein the skilful fisher takes great pleasure and finds it a pleasant and healthy exercise, as also in pools at certain stopped places, and at tails of mills. They are slaughtered in great plenty  especially in March and April. They are also taken by line hooks, by baiting many hooks and fastening them to one main line, and these being cast into the river in the evening, will be drawn in the morning  laden with fish. The trout also is taken with divers kinds of nets, as with trammel and fork nets, but most of all the drag net, which sweeps away great and small. For want of nets the poorer sort of people sew divers winnowing sheets and raw woollen cloths together, and with force of men draw sundry pools in rivers where the fish most frequent, where great and small are taken without respect and sometimes if a salmon or sewin hit in, they never use to cast it to the river again. The rivers of this shire differ, some having more, some less store of this kind of fish, and some excelling others in goodness and growth.


Eels and lampreys are found in every river, the more muddy the river, the better the eels. Also in old marl pits have been found eels very large and big, some of three or four feet in length and the bigness answerable to the same. But the chief store is found and taken yearly in the river Cleddau, near Llanstinan, where the great moor or bog, being of three miles long, serves for the nursery of this slippery fish. The taking of them is in August, their nature being to move and break asunder out of their beds in the muddy moor and, being stirred, the floods after great showers carry them to the river running through the bog, and at certain stopped passages, called weirs, they are in the night time taken in wattled wheels and nets pitched of purpose where, in the mornings, they are taken up by the bushel and salted. They are also taken in the rivers by line hooks, as I said before of the trout, as also by clotting, which is a clew of yarn all covered with angle touch worms and cast into the river or pool where they remain, and biting thereat, hang fast by their crooked teeth, and so landed. Pliny writes that the eel lives eight years, and will live dry seven days, so the north wind blow, but not so long with the south wind.


The lampreys are found in the fresh rivers with the eels, where be some of reasonable bigness. I have often seen them taken, but seldom dressed, because there is a conceived doubt of a vein, or gut, in some part of the fish, which must be drawn forth, which gut if  it break poisons the fish, which doubt preserves the life of this fish in most places where they breed.


The river mussels are not for meat, but are chiefly taken for the pearls that are found in them, the fish being great and long, of seven or eight inches, and are  so rank that they are rejected for the meat, and of the country people termed for their bigness, horse mussels. They are but rarely found, and in most of them are found pearls, some one, some two, some three in a piece, some four and orient but most  commonly cornered and dark, which makes them of less account. The chief rivers for this kind of fish are Taf and Nevern.


Of sea fish there is great store taken in every part at the sea shores, and as the several places where they are taken are many, so is the several kinds of fish divers, among the which I will first begin with the herring, which for the use it supplies and for the abundance thereof taken above all other sort, is called the king of fish. This fish is taken more common  about this realm than in any other country of the world, for, as says the history of Luigi Guicciardini, herrings are only bred in the septentrional, or northern, seas, but not in the southern seas, nor any river, nor yet in the Spanish seas, and says that they come out of the extremest parts of the northern seas and come with the first cold in great numbers, to avoid the frigor of the frozen seas, and that their course is to compass once the Isle of Britain, and so to the ocean. It is said they swim in great schools  together, approaching near the shore, delighting to see fires, or any human creatures, and are guided by kings, as the bees are, which going foremost, are followed of the multitude, and that the brightness of their eyes shine in the water like a lightning, by which mark they are discerned from the land. It is written that their kings are marked on their heads like a crown, and are ruddy of colour. This fish, contrary to the nature of all other fish, is said to feed and live only  by water and, as soon as it is brought into the air, presently dies. Rondelet, writing of the herring, says: 'The fish is apt to collect in large numbers and so large are the shoals of herrings that they cannot be caught, but after the autumn equinox they divide themselves into columns. They change their places and wander through the ocean in shoals, as a result of which it happens that many are caught at the same time'. This kind of fish is taken on the shores of this county in great abundance, especially for the eight years past, more than in former years. The places of their taking in this shire most usually was in Fishguard, Newport and Dinas, where for many years, and even from the beginning, there has some quantity been yearly taken. Of latter years they have resorted to Broad Haven, Goultrop Roads, Martin's Haven, Hopgain and St. Bride's, and have been plentifully taken to the great commodity of the county, and now, in the year 1602, they have been taken within Milford Haven and in the roads of Tenby and Caldey and near St. David's, and generally in every part of the sea shore about this shire, from the fall of the Teifi to Amroth, so that it seemed they had laid siege by sea about the county, so greatly has God bestowed his blessing this way upon this poor county, the Lord make us thankful therefor.


This fishing is chiefly from August till near Christmas, but the middle or first fishing is counted best as that which is fullest and fattest. The order of taking them is with drovers, and shooting of nets in known places chosen especially for the fairness of the ground, which nets are shot in the evening, the later the better, and drawn up in the morning with such store of fish as pleases God to send: sometimes ten meises, sometimes twelve, sixteen or twenty meises in a boat, each meise containing 620 or 600 herrings.


The pilchards, which now of late years are not so rife as before, and the mackerel are taken with them, but of these two sorts, nothing in respect to the herring.


Other kinds of sea fish this county yields in great  plenty at seasons, which, for that they are of so many several sorts, it would require a particular volume to write of every several kind, and of the order of taking of them, wherefore I will only name so many sorts of sea fish as my memory will suffer me, as this shore yields, which are these that follow: turbot, halibut, hurt, sole, plaice, fluke, flounder, ling, millwell otherwise called cod, hake, mullet, bass, which breeds twice a year as says Rondelet, conger, gurnet, grey and red, whiting, haddock, shad, the friar, bowman, sea smelt, sea bream, the cow, swordfish, sprat or sandeel, the earl or needle whose fins grow forward contrary to the nature of all fish, rough hounds, smooth hounds, thornback ray, shark, with many other kind of sea fish which I cannot now remember, are taken  in the sea coasts of this county which make the markets and gentlemen's houses to be plentifully served, beside the great relief for the poor near the sea coasts. The chief places of fishing of this shire, though every place yields some, is Milford Haven, Broad Haven, St. Bride's, Stackpole, the roads of Tenby and Caldey where, for the most part, there is no fail.


Now for the shell fish. This sea is also no niggard both for plenty and several lands, among whom before all I will give place to the oyster, which Milford Haven yields most delicate and of several sorts and in great abundance, and is a commodity much uttered in many shires, for by water they are transported to Bristol and to the Forest of Dean from whence by land they are sent to Somerset, Gloucestershire and some parts of Wiltshire, and oftentimes up the river [Severn] as far as Worcester and Salop. They are also carried by land to the shires of Carmarthen, Cardigan, Brecknock, Radnor, Monmouth, Hereford, Montgomery, and so to Ludlow and other parts of  Shropshire. The chiefest places of taking these oysters is Lawrenny, Llangwm, the Pill and the Crow. The first is accounted the fattest, whitest and sweetest. The Pill Oyster, for that it is less washed with fresh  water, tastes more salt, and therefore more pleasing to some, and is larger grown, and the Crow oyster strives with them both for delicacy.


These oysters are taken by dredge within Milford Haven, which is done with a kind of iron made with bars, having a piece of horse or bullock skin sewn to it like a bag, in such sort as that it being fastened to a rope's end, is cast into the bottom of Milford at eight or ten fathoms deep, and is dragged at a boat's end by two rowers which row up and down the channel, and so the bag of leather, being made apt to scrape up all manner of things lying in the bottom, gathers up the oysters that breed there over certain known beds, which bag being filled they draw up and empty their oysters into their boat, applying their labour so all day, and when they have done they row to some appointed place near the shore at full sea and there cast out the oysters in a great heap, which they call beds, where every tide overflows them, and so are kept for lading of boats to Bristol and other places.


Were it not that Wallfleet and Greenfinned oysters are better befriended at Court, then this poor country oyster of Milford is no question but he would, and well might call in question to have the chief praise before them both, and I presume if the poet Horace had tasted of the Milford oyster he would not have preferred the oyster of Circeii. . . saying:


The moon's increase doth fuller much the slippery cockles make;

In every sea ye shall not store of dainty shell fish take.     

The Baia whelk, but henfish best are in the Lucrine Lake,

The Circeii oyster, sea urchins breed at Misenum most,

The goodly scallop above all, doth fair Tarentum boast.


A pleasant minded man imagining the worst that might be spoken of the oyster said: It is an unclean meat, an unprofitable meat, and an ungodly meat: unclean meat for the fouling of hands in opening them, so that you must have water to clean your hands after them; unprofitable, for let a man eat never so good a meal as oysters, presently he sits at dinner and eats as earnestly as if he had not eaten anything before,- ungodly, because it is never used to say grace before oysters, as before other meat.


Beside this Milford oyster, there is a great kind of oyster gathered at Caldey and Stackpole which, being eaten raw, seems too strong a meat for weak stomachs and must be parted in half, third or quarter before it may be eaten by reason of its exceeding bigness, and is not counted so pleasing as the former and therefore  is used in pies, stewings, broths, fried and boiled, wherein it is found most delicate. The oysters, in ancient time, were accounted seasonable in those months only that had R, but experience now teaches that in May, June, July and August there are some  found to be very sweet and wholesome, though many be unwholesome, which are easily discerned, being opened they are filled with a cruddy matter like cream about the fish, which Pliny speaks of, and as Pierrre Gilles says: 'The oyster is strangely engendered: of  his milk, by casting of it upon any stock or rock that is overflown, oysters are engenered thereof. But we find by experience that the oysters breed their young, as the beggars do, by bearing them on their backs. But those that are found without this milk are found as   good and as sweet in those R-less months as at any other time of the year.


Lobsters and crabs are also found in the sea cliffs and other places and are very sweet and delicate meat and plenty taken. The lobster, says Dariot, set whole on the table, has three special qualities for, says he, it yields exercise, sustenance and contemplation: exercise in cracking its legs and claws, sustenance by eating the meat, contemplation in beholding the curious work of its complete armour both in hue and workmanship, by beholding its tassets, vambraces, pauldrons, cuisses, gauntlets, and gorget curiously wrought and forged by the most admirable workman of the world. And the crab does sensibly feel the  course of the moon, and filling and emptying itself with the increase and decrease thereof, and therefore is said to be best at the full moon.


The shrimp is also an inhabitant and taken upon every spring from the beginning of May till harvest, and those are most delicate and sweet meat. They are chiefly taken about Tenby in pits in the sand after the ebb.


Mussels, limpins, crevisses, sheath or haft fish, cockles, flemings, whelks, periwinkles, hens and  divers other shell fish are taken in sundry and most parts of the shore.


Lastly, I will end my fish meal with the three strange nature fishes, that is, the seal or sea calf, the porpoise and the thornpole. I call them strange of  nature for, whereas all other fish that breed their own kind do spawn, these do engender after the nature of beasts and the female do grow great and bring forth young.


The seal is covered with hair, life a calf, and has  four short legs, and broad pawed like to the mole. This fish comes to land to rest and sleep, and lie together in herds, like swine, one upon another, and at birth time, as Pliny says, comes a-land and is delivered and gives suck to the young till it is able to swim which,  he says, will be in twelve days, and never brings above two at a time. The fawn, at the first, is white and is more delicate meat than its ancestor, being strong and wholesome to eat, yet is it accounted a dainty and a rare dish of many men. This fish is very fat, as  bacon, and the skin serves to many uses being dressed, especially in times past, for covering of tents, because it receives no hurt by lightning. As says Pliny and Rondelet, the hair of the seal stares at the south wind and goes smooth with the north, but certain it is it does so at the flood and ebb, staring with the one and smoothing with the other.


The porpoise is in form like a mackerel, long and round, but more huge, as some of twelve or sixteen feet long, and its skin is smooth without hair or scale, like to the eel or lamprey. This fish is rammish, fat and strong for a weak stomach to digest. There is of this fish and of the thornpole, made store of oil, though very strong and of evil smell.


The thornpole is of like form, bigness and taste, and in all other things, to the porpoise, differing only in having a great round hole in the poll of its head through the which it used to spout out water in great streams, received in through the mouth.


These three kinds of fishes, being ravenous by nature, follow the schools of herrings, feeding on them and devouring them, and so, in herring fishing, are taken oftentimes wrapped in the herring nets.