12 June 2016 News/Editorial
My kind correspondent has given a link to a remarkably scenic instruction video https://vimeo.com/102311861 on how to release salmon without exposing them to the air, either at all, or for less than 5 seconds, if a photograph is required.
That it takes place in almost idyllic surroundings, no wind, no rain, no mighty Tweed to contend with, no boats and no vertical banks, and with short rods rather than our 16fters, obviously makes what is being presented that much easier to implement.
Nonetheless, the principles are the same ie so far as possible, salmon to be released should not be taken out of the water at all if physical circumstances allow that, and for as short a time as possible, less than 5 seconds, if damage is to be avoided.
Protracted photographing sessions with the salmon out of the water for minutes, not seconds, have to end.
I note a modest improvement in the photographs being published on Fishtweed and other websites, which is most welcome, but it seems to me that there is still room for improvement on some of them, with salmon still being held way out of the water.
We should all welcome Fishtweed’s latest newsletter giving a list of exactly the right advice on how to release fish.
No 3 on their list is “Keep the fish in the water”.
Nothing could be clearer than that, and hopefully, in time, all our websites and fishing magazines will reflect that in their photographs…... or if out of the water to photograph, for less than 5 seconds, as per that idyllic video.
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Mild controversy re last week’s bit about fish behaving oddly, and in particular the Spey brown trout with lots of little fish apparently removed from its stomach.
Learned reactions query whether the little fish were indeed young salmonids (fry, parr or smolts) or minnows? Others reacted with “I would still rather shoot goosanders” to the suggestion that big brown trout, over 3 lbs, could be significant predators of smolts, and that maybe we should be killing them.
That big brown trout do eat smolts and other young salmonids is both established fact and well known of old on the Tweed, where the local name for such fish-eating big brown trout was “Swallow-smolts”.
As is the case for goosanders and cormorants, it is also impossible to estimate accurately the damage that big brown trout do to the migrating smolt run.
They are not alone, of course.
We have three otters in the Temple Pool at present and I see them almost every evening, much of the time happily munching away on their hors d’oeuvre, little silvery things.
The most fervent smolt protectors, even those who think the only good goosander is a dead one, would not, I hope, want to do anything about them.
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Observant viewers of the Tweedbeats website will have noticed some changes of late, improvements, we hope.
By popular demand, salmon and sea trout catch numbers have been separated into discrete tables, both on the Catches page and on individual beat pages.
We have also given more prominence to fishing “Availability Alerts”, which you can access by clicking on the (brown) button top left on every page. Simply click on that button and then enter your name and e-mail address in the fields provided, and from then on you will get all new fishing availability, as soon as it comes onto the site, straight into your inbox.
It is as easy as that.
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