14 February 2016 News/Editorial
Those who tried to fish yesterday (Saturday) amongst the rain, sleet, snow and biting easterly wind, would readily agree that the bloke who decided that February should (in the main) have just 28 days, got it right, in spades.
It can be a terrible month.
Not so very long ago, those working on the nets would have been spending this weekend getting ready to start operations, on Monday, 15th February, the traditional start to the netting season. It would then go on for 8 months, until 14th September, and as late as the 1960s there would have been over 30 netting stations between Berwick harbour and Coldstream, some part time, but many full time, with the two big players being the Berwick Salmon Company and the Holmes Group. There were even more stake nets on the shore, south of Berwick down as far as Holy Island
In some years between them they caught over 100,000 salmon and grilse and 10s of 1,000s of sea trout, and this after the 100+ licencees of the Northumbrian Drift Net Fishery had done something similar between Holy Island and Newcastle.
Other than in flood conditions, the only hope of survival for salmon coming into the river was to arrive at a weekend, when for a very short 36 hours, the weekly close time, all these nets lay idle.
It effectively killed any hope of the rods catching any salmon in the summer, when water levels dropped and with that drop, the chances of salmon getting above Coldstream ended.
By a process of natural selection, as each year any summer salmon were killed off, so the chances of a strong run of salmon populating the summer months disappeared. For many beats, as a result, salmon fishing ceased in June, July and August, especially for those beats below Coldstream because, of course, the rods there were competing with the nets, often in the same pools!
Pan forward 50 years, we now have no nets starting on 15th February, no nets at all between Coldstream and Berwick other than Paxton which is for research only, and one net, part time, in Berwick harbour. There are no nets on the shore south of Berwick, and the Northumbrian Drift Netters are down to just 12 from their peak of well over 100.
All of which makes summer fishing on the Tweed, for the rods, not only viable now, but with the very real future prospect of a strong run of summer salmon establishing itself, simply because, unlike their unlucky predecessors, they can survive to spawn.
And of course there are the summer sea trout, now being caught by rods in unprecedented numbers.
No wonder that salmon and sea trout fishing in the summer months on the Tweed is becoming more and more popular. It is a lovely time of year, the brown trout fishing can be exceptional, and if the sun shines too strongly during the day, you can always play golf then and confine your fishing to those long and beautiful summer evenings.
And just maybe, because we no longer have any meaningful netting, a stronger and stronger summer salmon run will begin to appear.
As the February snow settles outside, it is a beguiling thought.
our twitter feed