leister

A spear armed with three or more barbed prongs for catching fish, particularly salmon.

The methods of catching the ſalmon in this pariſh are ſimilar to thoſe deſcribed in the ſtatiſtical account of Dornock, p. 15. excepting that there is no raiſe-net fiſhing, and that the leiſter is only about 10 or 12 feet long, conſequently better calculated for throwing to any diſtance.

Rob Runchy, as a forlorn hope, once threw his clodding leister at a drowning man floating down the Yarrow in a high flood, and hauled him out with the lyams unharmed.

To catch or spear (fish) with a leister.

We once knew a notorious salmon poacher, who, on one of his excursions, saw a pair of salmon spawning in a stream. He leistered the male from the side of the female, and as soon as she missed her partner, she retired from the spawning-bed into the pool below the ford, and very soon returned with another male, which the poacher also leistered.

You are quite correct, sir, […] in what you say about the quantity of oil in the heads of these fish [gurnets or gurnards]. […] [T]he heads [of the fish are] placed with their mouths upward, and a small quantity of tow placed in each mouth. When they [the poachers] reach the stream where they are to leister the salmon, the tow is lighted, the fire immediately communicates with the lips of the fish, and a beautiful clear light is emitted, which continues to burn for a considerable time. Sometimes also a single head, thus prepared and dried, is fixed at the end of a stick, and is used as a torch, when a poacher goes leistering single-handed.

A surname.