The boats had increased in size slightly from the time those in Buckie were surveyed at the end of the eighteenth century. Gardiner noted that the large boats ranged from twelve to fourteen tons in weight, while the small ones were between four and five tons. Writing of Port Gordon in 1842, he stated that there were seven large boats and ten small ones, making a total tonnage of around 150 tons. A large boat could be purchased for £27, the masts, sails and cordage costing a further £16, while the nets, on average forty-five to fifty yards in length, cost £3.10s. In fishing for cod, ling and haddock, a large boat required eight men, and each boat had, from February to April, nine lines containing 800 hooks at a yard’s distance. During this period, the fishermen seldom went further than fifty miles out. From the end of April, they frequently sailed further, around eighty miles out, in search of skate, which was found in abudance off the coast of Caithness. When in search of skate the number of lines was doubled from nine to eighteen. The Reverend Gardiner noted that “cod, ling, halibut tusk and skate were the only large fish caught in any quantity in the Moray Firth”. [i]

The catch would be salted in pots on the beach, then dried on the rocks or on a temporary frame made for the purpose. The skate, however, was dried without salt, and the halibut was used fresh. The ling and skate were viewed as the most valuable catches because of their oil which was sold from 10d to 1s per pint. Cod, ling and tusk were in season from May until the end of January, while the skate was good all seasons and the halibut in ‘high perfection’ in July. In June, the dried fish was packed in the large boats and carried for sale to the different towns on the Fife coast, as well as Edinburgh and Glasgow. Occasionally, these trips resulted in some of the fishermen marrying local girls from the Dunbartonshire area. On some occasions, boats went as far as Ireland. The cargo of each boat was valued around £100. The small boats, on the other hand, consisted of five men and a boy and were used for catching haddock, whiting, flounders and the like. Mackerel was caught from July until the end of August by a line sunk with lead and the hooks baited with a bright-coloured substance.

Also central to the village’s industry was the salmon fishing. This trade, which was entirely the property of the Dukes of Gordon and subsequently of the Crown Estates, continued well into this century. Most of those men involved in the salmon fishing came originally from the west of the Burn of Tynet, especially from Tugnet and Bellie. Throughout most of the nineteenth century the construction of salmon cobbles was one of the mainstays of the boat-building industry in the village. In addition, there were a series of bag nets for catching the salmon at suitable intervals between Tugnet and Port Gordon itself. Indeed there were bag nets located in front of Lennox Place until the middle of this century while those to the west of the village, beyond the Tannachy Sands, remained until relatively recently.

Mr Gardiner went on to describe the other activities around the harbour. According to the evidence he provided, Port Gordon was the biggest trading port in the parish of Rathven. He remarked that “considerable business is done in exporting grain, and in importing salt and coals.”[ii]  The import of salt was, of course, central to the fishing industry. The size of these cargoes seems to have varied dramatically. The sporadic nature of this trade can be illustrated with a cursory glance at the statistics for 1833-1841. This shows that 1,981 tons of salt were imported in 1833, 2,474 tons in 1834, and almost 5,000 tons during 1836 and 1837. The figures declined in 1838 and 1839 to 1,656 tons and 1,427 tons respectively, before rising in 1840 to 2,130 tons, and then declining again in 1841 to 1,380 tons. In contrast, the import of English coal remained at a fairly constant level throughout the same period (1833-1841). Each year around twelve to fourteen hundred tons made its way to Port Gordon, but by 1840, that figure had risen to 2,056 tons and in the following year it had increased to 3,517 tons. Foreign wood was also imported to supply the boat building industry in Speymouth. Traditionally, logs were floated down the Spey from Rothiemurchas to Kingston, however imports via Port Gordon also supplemented these and provided another facet to the commercial life of the village.

However, the trade was not all one way; grain exports from Port Gordon flourished throughout the 1830s. Much of the grain came from other parts of the Enzie but some also came from as far off as Botriphnie. Boats regularly loaded up with grain from the harbour, with the years 1836-37 having been particularly busy. From January 1836 until September 1837 some 12,538 quarters of grain were exported, with a further 7,564 quarters in the last three months of 1837 alone. The export trade continued at this pace the following two years with some 10,344 quarters shipped out of Port Gordon in 1838 and 11,243 quarters in 1839. However, the trade began to decline in the early 1840s and was down to 6,223 quarters in 1841. The remarkable thing was not so much the size of the cargoes as the existence of the trade at all, especially in comparison with Buckie, Portessie and Findochty, where only occasional imports of coal and salt took place.

[i] Ibid.

[ii]  Ibid.