13 July 2014 News/Editorial
You do not need a diploma in deductive skills to know that salmon have been scarce so far in 2014.
No need for counters, catches have been poor and you do not see any jumping about, that is all the evidence you need.
Tweed’s 100% catch and release policy ended for this year on 30th June…..so in theory fishermen are now free to kill whatever they want, and no doubt those who treat 100% catch and release as an unwelcome and unnecessary restriction on their own personal liberties, will do exactly that.
“One at 12lbs, Learmouth, fresh no lice, No 12 double, returned” read the message from Malcolm last Tuesday, 8th July.
The successful fisherman (shall we call him Graham?) had decided, without any pressure from anyone else, entirely on his own initiative, to put back a 12lb fresh salmon which he was perfectly entitled to kill.
Despite it being the only fish he caught, he did not kill it, because the evidence of his own eyes told him that it would have been the wrong thing to do.
Dead fish do not spawn, and whatever the rules do or do not say, our fisherman (Graham, wasn’t it?) decided to do the right thing, putting the interests of the river, and of the future, ahead of any personal satisfaction he would have gained from taking his prize back to the hut, and then eating it.
I read some of the letters in Trout & Salmon on the highly emotive subject of catch and release with incredulity; even accepting that the editor publishes them specifically to raise the blood pressure of people like me, those against catch and release, largely on the (often unspoken) belief that somehow the angler has a right to kill what he catches, are frankly pedalling self serving rubbish.
Those very same people will be enraged to the point of apoplexy at what the nets get up to, maybe paying lip service to conservation as the reason, but in reality because the nets are catching and killing salmon which means that those dead salmon will not be available for the apoplectic angler to catch (and kill).
The principle underlying all of this is quite simple:
“Nobody, neither net nor angler, should kill a salmon unless it is demonstrably the case that there is a harvestable surplus”.
That’s it, nothing about personal rights of anglers (they don’t have any when it comes to killing fish), nothing about the morality of catching a salmon (sticking a hook in its mouth) when you know you are going to return it (if that bothers you, don’t go fishing).
Our whole purpose as anglers, apart for the obvious one of enjoying ourselves when fishing and trying to catch some fish, should be to leave this world and our wonderful salmon rivers in better shape than we found them.
We are the custodians, we care passionately about them and compared to other environmental catastrophes around the world, we have done a pretty good job of preserving them.
My selfless fisherman can come back any time; if he returns in the autumn and the place is heaving with fish (few would argue there is a harvestable surplus in Tweed’s autumn salmon and grilse stock) and he wants to keep some of the fish, especially grilse, he catches then, that’s fine.
But with that single act of generosity last week, he potentially released the productive capacity of some 8,000 eggs in a scarce June fish (I am assuming the 12lber was female!) for the future.
I hope he…ah, yes, Graham, wasn’t it….returns in 4 or 5 years and catches some of her children.
And if he doesn’t, but you do, then give thanks and be grateful for somebody who put himself, and his own selfish interests, a long way second to the common weal.
Good on him.
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