11 October 2020 News/Editorial
That it has been a remarkable change in fortunes for Tweed’s September rod catches cannot be doubted. A reasonable guess at the 2020 September catch might be as high as 2,500 salmon and grilse, as compared to the recent 5 year average of around 1,200. A long march, maybe, from the extraordinary 5,440 haul of September 2010, but a most positive step in the right direction.
Not only that, but despite losing 2 months to lockdown, the annual Tweed rod catch for 2020 will be a step change up on the last 6 years. June and July were both all time records, for those months, for us here.
Facts are always useful, if rare, components of opinion. Here are some. Facts that is.
We caught 145 salmon and grilse here this September, only 7 (5%) of which were fresh out of the sea, the last of these on 12th September. 2 of the 145 had been caught and tagged on beats below us in July, so that we were catching them again at least 2 months after they first came into the river. They were the only two previously tagged fish we caught.
Make of that what you will, but what is certainly true (ie fact) is that had we been dependent on only fresh salmon for our September fishing, catches would have been very low.
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Amid the justified euphoria at Tweed’s late spring and summer fish numbers in 2020, it will seem, to many, both mean and curmudgeonly to indulge in something of a reality check.
Nothing new there, you might say, for the, often contrary, views expressed in these pages.
I have been reading “Stronghold” by Tucker Malarkey about one man’s mission to save all species of Pacific salmon, stretching from the west coast of the USA to the Kamchatka peninsula at the eastern extremity of Russia. The whole premise of the book, and of Guido Rahr’s obsession, is to ensure the survival and proliferation of Pacific salmon long term by setting up strongholds in as many rivers as possible around the Pacific rim, where salmon can return to rivers unchanged over the centuries, or at least protected from the various malign influences of humans. For it is we humans that have directly caused all salmon run collapses. Guido realised that. We are to blame and only we can fix it. Some say there is no time to lose.
The underlying theme of the book is to save the Pacific salmon from what has happened to the Atlantic salmon. “ A witness to the permanently depleted Atlantic salmon runs, he described a devastating corollary, that once a river was depleted to the point of species extinction, there was no hope for either. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not bring a salmon river back together again”.
The reality check is that that is how the Americans see us and what we have done to the Atlantic salmon “over here”. “Permanently depleted” may be a harsh judgement, but it has the whiff, the faintest aroma, of truth about it and it is a wake up call, a warning in the starkest terms.
The riverine, as opposed to the oceanic, solution is simple. We have to provide our salmon, in all its varied stages of life while in our rivers, with plentiful, clean and cool water. The problem is, can we do that with projected rises in global temperatures? Are we here on the Tweed getting close to the firing line as temperatures inexorably soar? Has it already become too hot for many of the English, Welsh, French and Northern Spanish salmon rivers to the south of us? Can they ever again hope to see the sort of numbers of salmon they used to see not so long ago, in the middle of the last century between 1930 and 1970, a period of huge salmon runs in all those rivers? Breaking news is that this September was the hottest worldwide on record, news that will surprise nobody, except the appalling Mr Trump who will inevitably describe it as “fake news”.
It was cold in the 1930s to 1970s, and the salmon liked it. Some say our salmon are endlessly adaptable, and that they will adjust to a much warmer planet. Those who have watched Sir David Attenborough’s “Extinction” programme on TV might well scoff at that. The precautionary approach will be to do as much as we can now to make life in the waters of our rivers viable long term for our fish, despite temperature rises.
This occasional rubbish will be returning to this subject in its future iterations. While our goosanders and cormorants have already returned to carry out their annual, most unwelcome, winter depradations, easy scapegoats for reduced numbers of fish, we might all be worrying about the wrong things. For it is we, not any birds, who are the principal culprits, and within our rivers at least, with vision and a good deal of money, we can put it right. The warnings are there, if only we are not too blind to see them.
Guido Rahr could. Do we need to make the Tweed more of a stronghold, a fortress of clean, cool and plentiful water to which our salmon can always return for many decades, even centuries, to come, safe, in the river at least, from our ever warming climate? That is the challenge. It might be rather too “goody two shoes” for some of you, but our responsibility is to leave our rivers in the best possible condition for future generations to enjoy, just as we have during our lives. I would argue that salmon now reaching Berwick harbour have a better chance of surviving to spawn than they have had for many centuries past. But one thing remains to be done, to provide security, insurance even, against the insidious but unarguable effects of climate change. The answer lies in providing shade, by planting bankside shrubs and trees along the Tweed’s, and all its tributaries’, massively long “track”.
It is a big idea. It will need to be millions of trees and shrubs, with visionary, committed, environmentally aware types to see it through. Are there enough of you out there or will the miopic “everything’s fine”, “there’s no need”, brigade win the day?
We will see.
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We all have to take commonsense decisions with Covid 19, some of them not strictly in accordance with the rules.
Our visiting anglers’ fishing hut is normally out of bounds, for many reasons, but mainly because, almost always, our 4 rods have not come from the same household. But what to do on a day like last Saturday and the 3 inches of rain produced by Storm Alex? Our fishermen that day were frozen, wet and tired by lunchtime. Telling them that they could not get dry in the hut, in front of a hot fire, could well have condemned them to pneumonia, hypothermia or whatever else. So we allowed them into the hut, fire ablaze, door open and windows open, to ventilate the hut as much as possible, and under instruction to sit as far apart as they could whilst they, and their equally sodden clothes, dried out.
Did we do the right thing? Of course, even if the rules did not strictly permit it.
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Opinions are divided on how ethical it is to go on catching increasingly coloured salmon as we progress through October and into November. I know some fishermen who have already hung up their rods, preferring only to catch the silver salmon that have been pouring into the river throughout the summer.
Others are just happy to be catching anything, knowing that everything they catch will be released but enjoying the challenge of hooking and landing a noble, if slightly coloured, foe.
To an extent this is nothing new. Coloured fish have always been caught at this time of year, because old springers spawn in October/ November anway, and always have.
What is different is the sheer paucity of fesh run autumn fish to catch, and the consequent red monochromaticity of the current catch.
By way of stark historical comparison, in very similar water conditions, ie after a big flood, between 20th and 24th October 1983 we caught exactly 100 almost wholly fresh silver salmon here with just 2 rods in 4 fishing days. I was there. I have pictures.
This last week, after the Storm Alex flood, between 7th and 10th October 2020, two full weeks earlier in the calendar but 37 years later, we caught 24 salmon with 4 rods in 4 fishing days, and just one (the first so far this October) of the fish caught was fresh.
That is some change. My father, a great advocate of changing salmon run cycles would be so pleased. I can hear him saying “I told you so!” Like me, he always liked to be right. Unlike his son, he usually was.
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The total river score for the week before last (the one that crossed into October) was close to 800 salmon and grilse, once you include all the non reporting (to Tweedbeats and Fishtweed) beats and tributaries. The river was low and clear throughout the week.
Possibly the best week of the year, and not an upstream flying condom to be seen.
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Spare a thought for all fishing letting agents, in our case my wife Jane. Not only have so many of our “locked down” 2020 spring tenants so kindly agreed to be rolled over to 2021, but, as happens every five or six years, all weeks here for 2021 have gone later by one week.
The combination of rollover and date change is a toxic mix leading to endless complications for 2021, and a good deal of hair being torn out, even for someone as calm and efficient as her. Absent more lockdowns, 2022 will be easier for all fishing letters and tenants alike.
If we are spared.
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And finally, but most importantly, on behalf of our ghillies, Malcolm and Paul, and of their fishing hut, so brutally broken into and denuded of contents, I would like to thank so many of you for your thoughts and generosity. Rods, reels and flies have been offered and given as gifts by so many kind and considerate friends of both ghillies. It has been very humbling and touching, showing the best of humanity in general, and of the fishing community in particular.
Picking out one or two for special mention is always invidious, because every offer of thoughts and kindness has been so welcome. Early on the Monday morning after the break-in, a large white van drove past my house down to the fishing hut to deliver a whole load of beautifully tied dressed trebles and tube flies. It was a neighbouring ghillie donating so many of his own tied flies, because he realised that on that Monday morning they would have none of their own to help out our visiting anglers. I will never forget that, nor the equally thoughtful and generous gifts of beautiful reels and rods by other long term tenants who have become the ghillies’ friends, and, of course, the Borders Gunroom in St Boswells for helping us with the insurance valuation of everything stolen. Thank you all.
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As the virus takes hold and our lives become ever more restricted once more, thank you for reading this. Take the greatest possible care.
Until the next time.
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