13 November 2016 News/Editorial
As we come, mercifully some might say, close to the end of the 2016 season, there are some points of interest, as well as some distinct oddities worthy of note, in the following summary.
1. For the 3rd year in a row, September has been dry, the average for those 3 years being just 1 inch of rain (in Coldstream) for the whole month, which in turn means no floods and the fish accumulating in the lowest beats. This is just about the worst possible start to the autumn for all those beats above Kelso, which rely on water to get the fish moving.
2. After the deluges, and consequent damaging floods, of January, the wettest month, as ever, was August. Never concentrated enough to provide the much sought after proper August flood, rather we had a series of 2ft dirty rises, which some would argue do more harm than good to the fishing.
3. As a consequence of all this, and after a better than normal spring, many of the beats above Kelso have had a very disappointing autumn, some catching substantially fewer in the autumn as compared to the spring and summer. Whether this becomes the norm for all beats is something we will all be looking out for.
4. Whereas the lowest beats have done better than most in the autumn, but, because of the all too obvious lack of fresh fish, they have done nothing like as well as would have been expected, given the consistently low water levels.
5. This lack of autumn fresh fish was not only apparent from rod catches, but also from the research netting carried out by the Tweed Foundation at Paxton. It is extraordinary that the the last 6 or 7 netting days at Paxton, in September and October, once a week, caught not a single fresh salmon in near perfect netting conditions.
6. For the third year in a row, the combination of warm weather and low water in the autumn has meant no proper autumn fishing, no Wetcel 2s or equivalents, either at all or at least not until well into November.
7. Whereas we know that the Tweed rod catch to the end of June was some 2,500 (quite easily beaten by the Spey), we also suspect that the total rod catch for the whole season will again, for the third year running, be plus or minus 8,000 (also less than the Spey). 2016 will therefore be the first year in recent times that Tweed has been relegated to 2nd place in Scottish salmon river catches.
8. There is evidence from every other Scottish river that the late running component of their salmon run failed in 2016. As the Tweed has had, by far, the biggest late run of salmon and grilse in recent decades, the demise of that late run has hit the Tweed disproportionately hard as compared to other rivers.
9. Whereas the trend of the last 3 years has been of a very much reduced Tweed autumn run, it is too early to say, for sure, either (a) that the Tweed autumn run will not return or (b) if it does not return, what, if anything, will it be replaced by in terms of increases in either spring or summer salmon, or both?
10.Despair at the above, and any consequent headlong rush for spring fishing, should be tempered by the fact that less than 1/3rd of Tweed salmon in 2016 were caught before 30th June, and over 2/3rds after 1st July. There is still no sign whatever, both here and on other rivers, of any increase in early running February and March fish; their numbers have flatlined for many years, and 2016 was no different.
11.Diverting to sea trout for a moment, they are now a valuable component of Tweed’s increasingly popular summer fishing. 2016 was as poor a sea trout year as 2015 was a good one. The ups and downs of sea trout numbers are, if anything, even less well understood and predictable than their salmon cousins….. which is saying something.
12.Tweed has one remaining in-river net at Gardo in Berwick harbour. Gardo tried to start netting for salmon in 2016 well before the 16th June voluntary agreement would allow, by quoting the fact that the Government had not made it illegal, to justify their position. Tweed, as a Category 1 river, is allowed by law to kill salmon after 1st April, but in giving the Tweed that status, the Government said that it was relying on local voluntary conservation measures, which do not permit netting for salmon until 16th June, and rods killing nothing until 1st July. Gardo then promptly broke this voluntary code, albeit temporarily, yielding to the outcry, and stopping killing spring salmon, once it became known what they were doing. It remains to be seen what they will do, or try to do, in 2017. In reality, of course, Tweed should not be a Category 1 river all year round, but should be Category 3 (no salmon killing at all) for the spring/early summer. There are signs the Government might be prepared to go down that route and have different categories for different times of year on large rivers such as the Tweed.
13.And finally, the North East of England drift net and T&J net fishery, that long time scourge of Scottish salmon rivers, caught over 15,000 salmon in 2015, a surprisingly large number given that 2015 was not a great salmon year. We will not know for another 6 months or more what their catch was for 2016, so slow is CEFAS and the EA in coming up with catch figures. By starting netting in June and finishing on 31st August, if we are all headed for bigger runs of salmon in late spring and summer, these nets will be/have been fishing for salmon when they are at their most plentiful, which could account for the unexpectedly large number they caught in 2015.
So, with just over 2 weeks to go, that’s nearly it for 2016. Another disappointing season here on the Tweed, not disastrous by any means, but not what we expect.
That some other rivers (Spey, Naver,Thurso) have done really well in 2016 gives us all some hope.
That most, if not all, other rivers also had few, if any, fresh salmon coming in after mid-August, means that we are not alone.
Find some comfort in all that, if you can, when looking forward to 2017.
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