12 April 2020 News/Editorial
With lockdown for another few weeks a seeming certainty, our visiting anglers and fishery owners alike must face the river being shut through April, probably most of/the whole of May as well. As surmised in an earlier effort on these pages, the smart money might even go for the end of June before we can fish again.
The uncertainties abound. What will lifting lockdown mean? Will all travel restrictions be removed? Will hotels, B&Bs and self catering accommodation be opened? If not, whether we can fish or not becomes irrelevant, because nobody will be able to get here and there would still be nowhere to stay when they do. Will fishing be allowed as a permitted activity, if so maybe only by wading on your own, no boats? How can you self distance in the huts, are huts safe unless rigorously cleaned/disinfected every day?
If we go for the end of June before normal activities will resume, main stem beats will lose up to a third of their annual income, whether deferred to 2021 or actually repaid, at a time when incomes are already 60% down on pre 2014 levels, all of which, even with furloughing and any other most welcome Government support, does not make for happy reading.
But then, as compared to many other trades and tourist based industries facing wipe-out, it could be worse.
The pessimists will wonder, what if lockdown has to go on beyond the end of June? Hard to imagine the British public, or the economy, could tolerate that, but unless the truly shocking hospital admission and deaths figures reduce to a much lower, still terrible no doubt, level, how can lockdown be lifted?
No blueprint, no precedents, we are all in uncharted waters, where hanging in there and keeping as safe as possible, while obeying the Government rules, is all we can, and must, do.
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Hypothetically speaking, for argument's sake, devil’s advocate and all, what if a main stem Tweed beat starts fishing for salmon? I suppose it becomes more likely the longer this lockdown goes on, and patiences fray.
Worse still, let us now suppose, it couldn’t happen but never mind, bear with me, that the impatient beat is filmed actually playing a salmon, rod bent and attendant ghillie ready with the net. For, of course, everyone has an iPhone now, mischief and amateur sleuths abound, so nowhere is safe from prying eyes.
How would it look to all the other Scottish rivers and the remaining Tweed beats who are not fishing? More importantly, how would it look to someone living in a high rise flat in the centre of a town or city to see people fishing on the Tweed, maybe even playing a salmon, while they are stuck inside, bar the allotted 30 minutes per day?
It is all highly hypothetical, of course, because I am sure nobody would actually break ranks. The “no fishing” rule, for those who actually live on the river bank, has proved controversial, because for them it involves no travelling and no staying, just a short walk, in some cases to the ends of their gardens.
But, the question will be asked, were anyone to lose patience and start fishing the longer this lockdown goes on, why shouldn’t everyone else then do the same, and soon you would have everyone who lives locally fishing on the river whenever they like?
Which would never do. Whoever you are and wherever you live, “stay at home” can never quite mean “stay fishing on the river”, can it?
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“What news of the jilted bride in all this, the river Tweed and its fish?” I hear you cry after three weeks of lock/reelsdown.
Younger son Nick (for context, age 35 and 6ft 7” and resident here for a month now) and yours truly dog-walked the whole length of our bit of river, mainly along the water’s edge, from Leet Point up to the Temple Pool on a glorious Good Friday morning. We saw sandpipers, sand martins, oystercatchers, paired up mallards, herons, fighting and mating swans, tufted ducks, geese (pink footed), more geese (Canadas), and neither a cormorant nor a goosander in sight. No wind, it was heavenly.
The pools looked much the same, except for lumps of gravel on the Cornhill side both at the Bags and the Duddo Mouth, and very much more gravel/shingle on our side of Cornhill Bend/Duddo Mouth and the Glide, but the gravel is on the sides, crucially not that I could see in the river where the fish lie.
As for fish, two salmon jumped in the neck of Learmouth, and as we pushed on for home, one jumped in the Cauld Stream and another at the top of the Temple. The river is low, not summer level yet, but it will be by the end of the coming week, as no rain is forecast.
So there you have it, all is well on the river, it looks perfect and there are some fish here, not loads, but enough.
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Good luck all and, as ever, stay safe.
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