Herrings abound in the waters round the coast of Great Britain. Ordinarily they are widely scattered in deep water, but at certain times of the year they come together in shoals in the warmer water near the surface for the purpose of spawning. It is at this time that they are of greatest value for food purposes and, being gathered together in shoals, are most economically caught.

The herring may spawn at any time of the year. In this respect it differs from all other British marine food fishes. Most British caught herrings spawn during September and Autumn. Very little spawning takes place during late winter and spring, i.e. just after minimum sea temperature. Each local race (or species) appears to spawn at a constant time of the year. The date of the annual spawning, and hence the herring fishing season, varies from point to point round the coast. Herrings caught at different places show well-marked differences in appearance and quality, which are evidently due to differences in species and feeding ground. The food value of the herring will depend also upon the time of the year at which spawning occurs. Thus, in the Irish Sea, there are two races of herrings—the Manx and the Welsh. The Manx herring spawns in summer (September), and is rich in fat; the Welsh herring spawns in winter (November and December), and is poor in fat. Herrings are first caught off the West coast of Scotland in the waters round the Hebrides. This fishing begins in the middle of May, its chief centre being Stornoway. In early June herrings are caught in the waters round the Orkneys and Shetlands, and then in succession off Wick, Fraserburgh and Peterhead, and the Northumberland coast (Eyemouth, Berwick and Sea Houses). About the middle of July the herring fishery season begins at Blyth and Shields, and at Scarborough and Grimsby towards the end of July. At Yarmouth and Lowestoft it begins early in October. The last herrings to be caught in British waters are caught round Devon and Cornwall in December.

Of the various kinds of herring obtained at different places, the largest and finest fish are those caught in Downings Bay off the North of Ireland, Castle Bay off the Island of Barra in the South Hebrides, and off the Shetlands. Herrings differ very much in their suitability for handling, keeping and curing. Most herrings have a small gut which is easily removed without seriously damaging the body of the fish. Blyth and Shields herrings, however, are very rich and fat, and have a specially big, distended gut. Such herrings are difficult to clean because, when this large gut is removed, the belly of the fish is so tender that it is often broken. Herrings caught off these ports are fat and oily, so that many are landed in a broken condition. The Yarmouth herring is firm and hard, and is the best adapted for handling and curing.

Unlike that of the cod, the flesh of the herring is very rich in oil and fat. The body flesh of the herring consists essentially of two well-developed layers of adipose tissue, alternating with two layers of muscular tissue. The fat in this adipose tissue is very liquid and oily, and tends to make the fish tender. The actual amount of body fat varies widely throughout the year. It gradually rises to a maximum before spawning takes place, and diminishes slightly before spawning and afterwards rapidly to a minimum. Thus, the fat content of Manx summer herrings is about 2 per cent during the winter, and rises rapidly in June and July, until in August, just before spawning, it is over 30 per cent. The herring has a small liver which also contains some oil.

Fishing is carried out with drifters. Practically all drifters to-day are steam-driven, although recently a number of motor-driven drifters have come into use. Motor-driven drifters are mostly sailing boats converted. Each drifter carries a crew of seven men, including the skipper and engineer. The boats are largely privately owned and the crew work on a share basis. A number of boats are owned by companies.

The boats from the various fishing ports work round the coast, following the fishing from port to port. At Yarmouth during the fishery season there are about 1,200 drifters from nearly all the fishing ports round the coast. Stornoway, Wick, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Aberdeen, Berwick, Whitby, and Yarmouth are all well represented.

Each boat carries from 70 to 80 nets. The nets are approximately 1 in. mesh. Each net is essentially a long rectangular curtain, hanging vertically in the water. Its upper edge, which is about 55 yds. long, is buoyed up by about 80 to 84 corks distributed equidistantly along it from end to end. The net is about 6 yds. wide. Each net hangs with its upper edge about 2 fathoms below the surface of the water, being attached at each corner to two pellets or bladders, resembling large footballs, and serving as floats.

Fishing nets and sails are often coated with warm gelatine, and then immersed in a strong solution of tannin. This renders the gelatine insoluble and preserves the nets against the attacks of destructive organisms.

When fishing, the boat takes up a position stern on to the tide. The nets are paid out over the bow and connected up in line, and carried by the tide till they form one long line, one end of which is attached to the drifter. The position of the nets is indicated by the line of bladder floats.

The fish swim against the nets, push their heads through, and then, owing to their gill openings, find that they cannot withdraw their heads, and in this way are caught in enormous numbers. Generally, fishing goes on all night, and in the morning the nets are hauled in, and, together with the attached fish, are thrown into the hold situated amidships. The drifters then return with all possible speed to the fish wharf. While the boats are returning to port, the men draw the nets from the hold and shake them free from any entangled fish. When the drifter reaches port, she moors alongside the fish wharf, bow on, and unloads her cargo of fish, using her derrick mast. The fish are unloaded in a round basket which is stamped by the Fishery Board’s officer as holding a quarter of a “cran.” The word “cran” is derived from the “crown” branded by the Fishery Board’s officer on each of the two wooden shafts in the basket.

The cran is the measure which is universally used in the trade. At Yarmouth and Lowestoft originally herrings were counted out and sold by the “last.” A cran averages from 900 to 1,000 herrings and weighs approximately 3 cwts. A “last” equals ten crans, and originally consisted of 13,200 herrings, counted out. This method, of course, was too slow and has now been abandoned.

The herrings, as they are removed from the ship, are put into special baskets called “swills,” each swill holding half a cran. The swills containing the day’s catch are arranged in rows on the fish wharf, opposite each drifter. It is a great sight to see about four or five hundred drifters lying, bow on, alongside the fish wharf for about 2¹/₂ miles, all unloading fish as fast as they can.

A good day’s catch would consist of about 90 crans. A good catch, therefore, would average about 100,000 herrings, and would weigh about 13 tons. Some boats come in with as many as 160 crans of fish, and the total “cranage” for a day may exceed 30,000. The total catch for Yarmouth on a good day would be about 30,000,000 herrings, weighing about 4,000 tons.

Sometimes when the catch has been poor, the drifters remain out on the fishing grounds for another day, rather than come home with a small catch. In this case, the two catches are kept separate, the first catch being called “overdays.” Overdays are worth about half the price of fresh fish and are, of course, less suitable for high grade curing.

After it has been purchased by the curer, the fresh herring may develop into a salted herring, a red herring, a bloater, or a kipper, depending upon the degree of salting and smoking to which it is subjected. Herrings are sometimes put into cold storage, to be withdrawn subsequently as occasion demands, either to be salted or, more frequently, to be consumed fresh. Cold storage affords a convenient method of preserving herrings when there is a glut, for at such times it is often impossible to deal with the herrings adequately in the ordinary curing yards.

Salted Herrings. The fresh herrings are delivered to the curer’s yards. Here, the fish are emptied into broad, shallow troughs, which generally run from end to end of the yard. The troughs are about 4 ft. wide, and are generally made of wood and arranged at a convenient working height. Usually, the trough is situated just inside the boundary wall, and the fish are delivered into it through large openings in the wall.

The fish are gutted and salted by Scottish girls—many of them from the Hebrides—who come to Yarmouth and other places in the season for this purpose. These girls are all brought up in Scottish villages, and are extraordinarily expert in all the operations connected with the cleaning and salting of the fish. They work in crews of three, and take very good care that each member of the crew is a good worker, as they are paid according to the amount of work they do.

Each girl receives 25s. a week as a kind of subsistence allowance, and is paid 1s. a barrel for the work she does.

As the fish are delivered into the gutting trough, they are liberally sprinkled with salt, thus enabling the women to grasp the fish easily, as otherwise the fish are too slippery for quick handling.

The women work standing in a row beside the trough. They pick up a fish, gut it by inserting a sharp knife just below and behind the gills, and with a quick, upward cut, bring away the gut. The guts drop into small tubs placed in front of each worker, and are collected periodically and sold to manufacturers of manure. Behind each woman are three shallow tubs or baskets, and after she has gutted a fish, she throws it behind her into one of the three tubs, according to its quality and size. In this way, the two operations of gutting and selecting the fish are combined. As the tubs of gutted fish become filled, they are taken away by other girls to the barrel packers, and are packed in separate barrels, according to quality or size. The barrels are arranged in long rows, generally parallel to, and at some distance behind, the gutting trough. A girl will pack about three barrels in an hour.

The gutted fish are first of all emptied into large, shallow tubs called “rousing tubs,” placed just behind the row of barrels, and are again sprinkled with salt.

The packer takes an armful of fish from the rousing tub and drops them into the barrel. Each time the fish are taken from the rousing tub the contents of the tub are well stirred up. The fish are then packed in the barrel in layers, bellies upward, and each layer is liberally sprinkled with salt. In this way each individual fish is first of all thickly coated with salt in the rousing tub, and adjacent layers of fish in the barrel are also separated by a layer of salt. In this packing process, it is important that the fishery salt used should be coarse, reasonably hard, slow in dissolving and present in considerable excess. It should be coarse enough to prevent the fish from touching each other, thus enabling the brine to penetrate to every part. It should be hard enough to withstand the pressure of the fish in the barrel. It should dissolve slowly, so that the salting process takes place gradually, enough salt remaining undissolved throughout the process to keep the fish from touching. Altogether, about 1 cwt. of salt is used for each barrel of herrings cured.

The barrel, when fully packed, is covered over and left for about eight days. During this time, the salt extracts water from the fish and dissolves in it to form a saturated brine. The efficiency of this salting process necessarily depends upon the salt being present in considerable excess, so that the brine formed is kept saturated, and consequently continues to withdraw water from the fish.

At the end of eight days, the barrels are opened, an inch hole is drilled in the side at the bilge, and the pickle allowed to run out. It is found that, owing to the withdrawal of water from them, the herrings have shrunk considerably, and some more salted herrings are added to the barrel, until it is full again. It is then fastened down permanently, turned over on its side and filled with brine pickle, and corked up.

The brine pickle which is formed during the eight days is not allowed to run to waste, but is used for filling up the barrels after they have been repacked. This brine pickle contains amino bases, together with small quantities of coagulable proteids, and is of distinct nutritive value. The Poles and Russians, who are great consumers of these salted herrings, actually use the pickle as a kind of sauce or gravy, dipping their bread in it. This, together with the general demand for salted herrings in these two countries, may very largely be due to the comparative scarcity and high price of salt there.

A cran of herrings (about 1,000 fish, weighing approximately 3 cwts.) uses up 1 cwt. of salt and, when completely salted, just fills a barrel. The curer estimates that 5 to 6 tons of salt will be sufficient for 100 crans of herrings. Herrings salted in this proportion should be exported and consumed before the warm weather comes, as they are liable to decay if the temperature rises above 70° F. The herrings that were packed for the British Government (1920-1921) were salted more heavily than usual (7 to 8 tons of salt per 100 crans), as, owing to the uncertain condition of the Russian and German markets, it was necessary to keep some of the fish in stock for a considerable time. Such a heavily-salted fish would be unpalatable to the home consumer.

In Yarmouth and Lowestoft, and also in Scotland, 100 crans of herrings should fill, when cured, from 125 to 130 barrels.

Herrings are sometimes salted at sea, 1 ton of salt being used to each last (10 crans) of herrings. Such herrings are mostly used to make “red herrings.”

Red Herrings. A considerable trade in red herrings is done with the Mediterranean and the Levant. For this trade, the fish must be thoroughly smoke-cured, otherwise they will not keep in the comparatively warm climate. The fish are first of all dry-salted in concrete tanks about 10 ft. square and 6 ft. deep, arranged under the floor of the curing house. Fresh fish and salt are simply thrown in and mixed up, and left to develop their own pickle.

Generally speaking, 1 ton of salt is used to 10 crans of herrings, and each tank will hold from 20 to 30 crans of the fish. The fish should be left in these salting tanks for five days at least; sometimes, of course, they are left for months, according to the trade, in which case the tanks practically serve as storage tanks for the salted fish. The fish are removed from the tank as required, washed, and put on “speets” and smoked. A “speet” is a wooden rod about 3 ft. 6 ins. long and pointed at one end. The fish are threaded on the speet through the gill openings and mouth, each speet holding from 20 to 30 fish. The speets are then stacked horizontally on racks in the smoke house “loves” (lofts), about 6 ins. apart and about 12 ins. above each other, until the smoke house is filled from the roof to within a few feet of the floor. When the smoke-house is filled, fires are lighted on the floor. Generally, the fuel used is oak turnings, shavings, and sawdust. This material burns quickly, and gives a very resinous smoke which not only dries the fish, but also permeates it thoroughly.

The rate of curing and the character of the finished product depend upon the temperature of the smoke, and the proportion of antiseptic resinous materials in it. When the oak or other suitable hard wood fuel is in the form of turnings or dust it burns quickly, and thus produces a fairly hot smoke, containing antiseptic substances—for example, guaiacol and creosol. Such a smoke will cure the fish quickly.

If oak billets or logs are used they burn comparatively slowly. The smoke, therefore, is not so hot and, since slow combustion in this case probably means more complete combustion, the proportion of resinous constituents in the smoke is liable to be considerably diminished. When oak billets are used, therefore, curing takes place much more slowly.

The temperature in the smoke house will also depend very much upon the prevailing weather temperature outside. In cold weather it is difficult to keep the temperature up sufficiently. The curing takes longer, and results in a hard cured product. In very warm weather, on the other hand, it is difficult to keep the temperature down, and a “fired” fish is sometimes produced, i.e. one which is half-cooked and soft. Such a fish is clearly unsuitable for packing for export.

Generally speaking, the temperature of the smoke should be such that the curing takes about 10 days.

After smoking, the fish are taken off the speets and selected according to quality. Those which are large and perfect fetch a better price, and command an entirely different market from those which are damaged or broken.

During the smoking of red herrings, the fires are lit each night, and simply allowed to burn themselves out.

Bloaters. There are two kinds of bloaters: those intended for the home trade and those intended for the Mediterranean trade. For the home trade the herring is lightly salted by immersing it in brine for two hours or less. It is then dried in the smoke-house for one night, using billets. Unlike “reds” or kippers, it is not cured by the smoke, but simply dried. The bloaters for the Mediterranean trade are salted in concrete tanks in exactly the same way as red herrings, but, instead of being smoke-cured for 10 days or so, they are simply smoke-dried for two days.

Kippers. Kippering is the only process in the herring industry in which the fish are split before curing. Fresh herrings (sometimes over-day herrings) are bought early in the morning from the drifters and taken to the curing yard. They are split down the back, close to the backbone, and gutted and thrown into large, open baskets. The basket and its contents (about 50 herrings) are then plunged into a tank of running water, and violently agitated to wash blood and slime from the fish. The fish are then thrown into brine in large tanks about 6 ft. by 5 ft. by 4 ft., until the tank is full. Salt is then sprinkled on the surface, and the fish are left from half to one hour, according to their size.

They are then hung on kipper speets. A kipper speet differs from a bloater speet. It is a square bar of wood about 3¹/₂ ft. long, and of 1 in. square cross-section. It is supported horizontally. The split herrings are opened out and impaled upon hooks at intervals along each side of the speet. Each speet in this way will carry about eight or nine herrings a side. The speets are then stacked on racks in the “loves” of the smoke-house, are smoked over-night, using fires of oak turnings and sawdust, and are packed the next morning in boxes.

The herring is probably the most abundant food fish known. During the autumn herring fishery of 1920, over 1,000,000 crans of herrings were landed at Yarmouth and Lowestoft. If we assume that one cran measure contains 1,000 herrings, we see that over 1,000,000,000 herrings were caught in less than 4 months, and this probably represents only a small fraction of the number present on the fishing grounds. In 1913, 11,762,748 cwts. of herrings, of value £4,412,838, were landed in Great Britain. In the same year, the exports of herrings from the British Isles were as follows—

The quantity of herrings caught by other European countries is as follows—