Salmon Fishing - "Putchers" (General)

by m p griffiths , Thursday, December 09, 2010, 19:11 (5105 days ago) @ jhopkins

From 'Portrait of Gloucestershire' by T.A.Ryder (re-printed 1976)

'The basket-makers also made 'putchers' for the salmon-fishers. These are long open-woven containers, larger at one end than at the other. They are fastened in rows to a wooden framework which projects out into the river between high and low water levels. The salmon swim into the larger end as they come up with the current and are unable to get out once inside.

There used to be more of these stands - called 'fixed engines', oddly enough, since they had no working parts, nor do they move - than there used to be. One of the largest, containing several scores of putchers, has recently disappeared to make way for the lagoon built in connection with the erection of the nuclear power-station on the river bank at Oldbury-on-Severn, although there are some still at nearby Littleton, and elsewhere.

The sites of these 'fixed engines' are of great antiquity, dating back to the early thirteenth century at least' since that time no new sites have been added.