[Verse 1]
With our nets and gear we're faring
On the wild and wasteful ocean
It's out there on the deep, that we harvest and reap our bread
As we hunt the bonnie shoals of herring

[Verse 2]
It was a fair and a pleasant day
Out of Yarmouth harbor I was faring
As a cabin boy on a sailing lugger
For to hunt the bonnie shoals of herring

[Verse 3]
O we left the home grounds in the month of June
And for Canny Shiels we soon were bearing
With a hundred cran of silver darlings
That we'd taken from the shoals of herring

[Verse 4]
O the work was hard and the hours were long
And the treatment, sure, it took some bearing
And I used to sleep standing on me feet
And I'd dream about the shoals of herring

[Verse 5]
You're net rope man now, boy, you're on the move
You can swear and show a manly bearing
Take your turn on deck with the other fellows
As you're following the shoals of herring
[Verse 6]
Now you're up on deck, you're a fisherman
And you're learning all about seafaring
That's your education, scraps of navigation
As you hunt the bonnie shoals of herring

[Verse 7]
In the stormy seas and the living gales
I earned the gear that I was wearing
Sailed a the thousand miles, caught ten million fishes
We were hunted for the shoals of herring

[Verse 8]
And it's night and day were faring
Come winter wave or winter gale
Sweating our cold, growing up, growing old, or dying
We will hunt the bonnie shoals of herring