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

O, it was a fine and a pleasant day
Out of Yarmouth harbour I was faring
As a cabin boy on a sailing lugger
We were following the shoals of herring

Now you're up on deck, you're a fisherman
You can swear and show a manly bearing
Take your turn and watch with the other fellas
As you're hunting for the shoals of herring

Now we fished the Swarth and the Broken Bank
I was cook and I'd a quarter-sharing
And I used to sleep standing on me feet
As we hunted for the shoals of herring

We left the home grounds in the month of June
And for canny Shields we soon were bearing
With a hundred cran of the silver darlings
That we'd taken from the shoals of herring
In the stormy seas and the living gales
Just to earn your daily bread you're faring
From the Dover Straits to the Faroe Islands
And you're hunting for the shoals of herring

Well, I earned me keep and I paid me way
And I earned the gear that I was wearing
Sailed a million miles, caught ten million fishes
We were hunting after shoals of herring

You're net ropeman now, boy you're on the move
And you're learning all about seafaring
That's your education, scraps of navigation
As you hunt the bonnie shoals of herring

Night and day the seas we're daring
Come wind or calm or winter gale
Sweating or cold, growing up, growing old
Or dying
As you hunt the bonnie shoals of herring