A brief history

Originally the Forss was principally a net fishery, with just the owners of the Forss Estate and a few guest anglers fishing the river each summer season.  One of these, David Couper, a local man, caught the river’s all time record, a cock fish of 43lb, gaffed and landed by his son Fraser - then aged 13 - on 14th August 1954, a cast of which can be seen on the bar wall in the Forss House Hotel to this day.

In the past, the netting of Crosskirk Bay by net and coble at the mouth of the river regularly produced annual yields of between 1,500 and 5,000 fish, which were dispatched via Aberdeen to markets in the South.  Evidently there was never much doubt about the potential of the Forss catchment to hold a healthy level of stock!

The netting ceased with the establishment of the Timeshare in 1986. Its first River Superintendent, Gordon Dagger, ran successfully a small hatchery operation to kick-start the rebuilding of the river’s then very depleted salmon stock. Since his retirement in 1996 the stock has not only maintained itself, but has undoubtedly further increased. This is confirmed by the healthy runs of fish to be observed running up the falls at rates of 70 to 150 per hour, at times when water levels and general tidal and temperature conditions are favourable.

The Johnston Collection

These four charming photographs, dating from around 1900, are shown here by courtesy of the Johnston Collection in the Wick Museum.

The collection represents the work of three generations of Caithness photographers, who captured images of life in and around the area between 1863 and 1975. During that period they produced around a hundred thousand glass plate negatives. Of these, around fifty thousand survive and are held in trust by the Wick Society.

This important collection represents a unique record of Wick's development and its importance as a major herring fishing port, as well as unique scenes from many other areas of industry and general life across Caithness and Sutherland.

We are fortunate that these scenes include the four of our river shown below.

Please visit www.johnstoncollection.net to see further examples of what is available both to see and to purchase.