14 June 2020 News/Editorial
After some predictably aggressive reaction to my beaver piece last week from the expected quarters, let us return to matters wholly Tweed and fishy.
Not as good as the week before maybe, but still the scores last week were more than decent. In just 12 days fishing, the June 5 year average rod catch of around 600 has already been well and truly exceeded. The consistent theme remains that the quality of the fish is remarkable, those skinny grilse of yore now but a distant memory. And still there are reports of large numbers near the tide, if only we could get some water they would spread out a bit.
Are they springers or summer fish? A mixture is probably right, as biologist Prof Ronald Campbell reckons that there is a bit of both in June, and the speed with which some managed to get to Mertoun and beyond in unfavourable conditions is certainly indicative of springers. On the other hand, the chunkier ones could be what many of us associate with the bigger summer fish.
At the end of the day, it matters not, just that there are many more fish than we have had of late is a cause for immense rejoicing and a huge boost for all our depressed psyches after some very tough years.
You would expect a word of caution. Welcome as this is, one summer does not make a summer, and there is a long way to go before we can say we have returned to anywhere near the abundant days of the 1960s, and before that back to the 1930s, for our earlier running fish.
“Make the most of it” should also be the message, because when we get to September and October, it would be a very brave man to bet against a continuation of the recent trend of very few fresh fish coming in after August.
What of next week?
With levels up today (Sunday), things could be good on Monday and Tuesday if some of those tidal beats fish decide to move on. Warmer is the forecast for the week, which of itself could depress catches, but slack (windless) and unsettled, so with water at a premium, we will need the odd extra freshet to keep things going. Surrounded by low pressures, we might get just that. A flood would clean the river out, but that might be too much for the lower beats, if just what those above Kelso would like. Luckily we do not get to choose, we will get what we get and there is nothing any of us can do about it.
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There is a default setting with salmon fishermen that goes something like this; when there are no fish, blame trawlers, Spanish, Russian, you name it. Then the reverse is also true, when there are some fish, it is because those self same trawlers are Covid 19’d and not fishing, ergo we suddenly have lots of fish.
Nobody has quite decided whether these (mythical) trawlers are catching post smolts, ie the salmonid babies as they forge their way to the Faroes and Greenland, or the adults being hoovered up as they come back home. If the former, then Covid can have nothing to do with it, for the fish we are catching now were post smolts 2 years ago, a long time before Covid 19 was around. If the latter, how is it that these trawlers have been avoiding catching any of our autumn salmon until 2014 when they suddenly started slaughtering them, and how is it that they have never impacted the spring and summer salmon in the same way, as their numbers have remained remarkably constant?
It is all guff and conjecture, and ignores the natural vagaries of a wild species. Somehow we humans cannot handle, either in good times or bad, that the salmon do it for themselves, that nature is fickle, and that, luckily, a lot happens “out there” which is wholly outwith human control. The “blame the trawlers in both good times and bad” brigade need a logical, humans-based reason for all that happens in the wild, whereas much in nature is illogical, random and mercifully outwith any human orbit of influence.
The last word goes to my hero Orri Vigfusson. One late May in the early 1990s, Jeremy Read (deputy director of the AST) and I went to see the great man in Iceland. He could not have been more welcoming and charming. I recall two things he said in particular.
On getting into Orri’s car from the airport (still “daylight” at 1am), Jeremy commented what lovely soft seat coverings his car had, to which Orri gleamed “The only good seal is a dead seal!”
Later on I asked him specifically what he thought about trawlers scooping up our salmon. “Think about it” he said “why would any trawler go after salmon, their numbers are decreasing, they do not swim in sufficiently identifiable routes or in big enough shoals to make them even remotely commercially viable; trawlers targeting salmon will go quickly bust. Not only that, if we ever suspect any boat of fishing for salmon, we see them from here in Iceland by satellite surveyance as we cover the whole North Atlantic, we trace where they are going to land their catch, and we send someone along to that port to inspect what comes off.”
Orri was more concerned about almost all things for our salmon, but I have no knowledge that trawler catches on the high seas was one of them.
Which is good enough for me.
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My earlier piece pleading with fishers not to kill our precious salmon struck a chord with one correspondent who tells me that many more salmon are killed on the Tweed than are reported, and that methods of fishing are not always as pure and legal as they should be on some quite well known beats.
Why? All to please visiting anglers and to augment the level of “tips” to the ghillies.
I could not possibly comment.
My own belief is that, although some of this will undoubtedly be true, after all there are bad apples in every basket, the overwhelming majority of ghillies/boatmen have the very best interests of the river and the fish in it as their absolute priority, far above anything else, especially the odd extra “tip”. They have had a rough time lately and the fact that the Tweed has held up comparatively well as a premier angling destination is very much thanks to them; and for that we fishermen and women should all be both thankful and grateful.
Hopefully, any few bad apples that there are will be exposed for what they are, and the sooner the better.
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And finally, I made a hash of landing one last night in our most attractively named pool, The Bags. After a strong fight, I pulled it half in and half out of the water up against some stones, there being no beach or gravel. I held on, not wanting it to slide back in the water, nor would it lie still, at which point, if it had, I could advance from the 14ft distance of my rod to control it and remove the fly.
After one more thrash and what seemed like an interminable stalemate, the fly came “ping” out of its mouth and it was back in the water, free, in a flash. I dare say some would have counted it in these days of catch and release, for it was ashore and half grounded for quite a while, but the old school purist would say no, you have to have it fully under your control. And, of course had there been a ghillie and a net, it would have been in the net long before the ensuing drama. Trout angler Guy was there watching, and offered his trout net, and maybe I should have accepted, but it is no easy matter getting a lively fresh 9lb salmon into a small trout net, for that too could have ended badly.
Which brings me to my point. After 60 years of fishing, I have decided I do not enjoy playing salmon, not even one tiny little bit. The take, yes; the successful netting, beaching etc of the final capture, yes; all the bit in between, no. I can honestly say there is not one single second of playing a salmon when I do not think it is going to get off. As an anxiety junkie, every shake of its head, every lurch into the deep, every jump, every time it rushes towards you and everything goes momentarily slack, it is all pure unmitigated torture.
Many years ago, we went to dinner at what was then Sunlaws Hotel with Jane’s cousin Simon and his fishing party. Amongst them (name dropping alert) was the (previous) Duke of Marlborough, “Sunny” to his friends. During dinner, Simon lent over and whispered to me “Do you know what he does? Soon after hooking one, he hands his rod over to his man (butler) to play it and land it for him.” At the time, I could not understand why?
I do now.
He avoided all that hellish nerve shredding bit in the middle, and transferred it to his “man” while calmly watching the action from afar. So next time you see me playing a salmon, please have mercy on my nerves and take the rod away. I can then relax and watch you becoming a gibbering nervous wreck.
Instead of me.
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