Felled by Kipper. Was it a Red Herring?

A leisurely Sunday breakfast with a kipper was spoilt. It was a dodgy kipper! I keep telling the goodladywife not to go to that particular retailer. The only reason it exists, as Alan Coren firmly believed, is to keep the riffraff out of Waitrose. I apologised in the office advancing the, less than stirling darling, as the reason for a lackluster performance.

Unaccountably the question of red herrings came up. I said that I had seen one and since the Blessed Steve Hatt hat confirmed it was indeed such, I have no doubt that the beast exists. I went on to give, in that boring old fart (BoF) way some people find intensely irritating, what I believed to be the origin of the preserved herring's colour. This was immediately (and correctly, why trust a BoF) challenged by one of the younger members of the team. Google was appealed to but did not immediately reveal the origin of the colour. Instead, it gave the use that term has in signifying a diversion. The question was then raised about how it had come to signify this. No answer was immediately available from the electronic font of all wisdom. I was sent off with the challenge to find out what, why and how. This is always a good way to get rid of a BoF on a Friday afternoon when you have got lots to do.

I couldn't resist the challenge.

Reference from the web - "red herring" fish on Cley Smokehouse cached on Google

This is the longest process of all and probably the most traditional. The herring are left in a dry brine for three weeks and then smoked over oak for 2 weeks, leaving a golden red sheen on the fish hence the name red herring.

One of our kitchen bibles is Jane Grigson's Fish Book She describes on p191 the need to have a fish that was easy to store and transport, not in large barrels of salted fish, so a particularly efficient technique was evolved to smoke salted herring. The treatment produced a dryish red object - the red herring.

Why should it be the signifier for a diversion or diversionary tactic?

Another (crossword) bible in our house is Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

An electronic version E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.

gives:-

Drawing a red herring across the path. Trying to divert attention from the main question by some side-issue. A red herring drawn across a fox’s path destroys the scent and sets the dogs at fault.

I rest my case. Which is full of red herrings, of course! Why prior to 1898 would anyone want to set the dogs at fault? Did the Victorians have a burgeoning anti-hunt movement?

I need to lie down and fan myself with a kipper.