Fishing industry in Scotland to feed the fisher and their immediate community. By the medieval period, salmon and herring were important resources and were exported to continental Europe, and the towns of the Hanseatic League in particular. As the industry developed, "fishertouns" and villages sprang up to supply the growing towns and fishing became more specialised. The many religious houses in Scotland acted as a spur to fisheries, granting exclusive fishing rights and demanding part of their tithes in fish. In the early 19th Century, the British Government began to subsidise the catches of herring boats larger than 60 tons, plus an additional bounty
Fishing industry in Scotland have looked to fishing as the main source of employment. Restrictions imposed under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) affect all European fishing fleets, but they have proved particularly severe in recent years for the demersal or whitefish sector (boats mainly fishing for cod, haddock and whiting) of the Scottish fishing industry. The main fishing areas are the North Sea and the seas west of Scotland. Fish have been recognised as a major food source from the earliest times. Fishing was important to the earliest settlers in Scotland, around 7000 BC. At this stage, fishing was a subsistence activity, undertaken only