news/editorial

15 April 2018 News/Editorial

The score for last week was 66 salmon and 7 sea trout, making the season’s total to 14th April 263 salmon and 30 sea trout.

The forecast, at long last, is for a settled warm spell from Wednesday in the week to come, after some rain tonight and again on Tuesday, which may or may not affect the river.

All this should rise water temperatures and, eventually, depending on the extent of Tuesday’s rain, lower river levels.

Will it improve the fishing?

Your guess is…..probably better than mine.

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Fisheries Management Scotland (FMS) has issued its 2018 Annual Review, and with it, the results of the 2017 season.

The Tweed’s salmon catch of 6,577 was considerably higher than the Spey (5,292), the Tay (5,171) and the Dee (4,051), although these other rivers can justifiably claim that the Tweed has the longest season, with none of them fishing in November, and some not even in October. On the other hand, Tweed’s November 2017 was by far the worst of recent times, with only 374 salmon caught.

Once all the sums are pulled together, 2017 will probably prove to be the third worst salmon catch on record, Scotland wide, a dismal statistic for what was a poor year almost everywhere. The exceptions were the smaller rivers in the far north who generally equalled or exceeded their 10 year averages.

Apart from the (mainly) very poor catches, the other common factor was an absence of both grilse and late running salmon in 2017…...in other words exactly like the Tweed.

All of which means, beyond any reasonable doubt, that these factors, and their causes, originate in the sea, for it is only the sea which is common to all rivers.

The FMS Review goes on to speculate that “2018 may therefore prove pivotal in determining whether we are returning to a state similar to one experienced in the past (viz spring and summer salmon dominance over grilse and autumn runs) or whether, because of climate change and changes in the marine environment, we are entering into a situation with no recorded precedent”.

So far in 2018, and here we are in mid April, you would be pushed to see “spring dominance” in any Scottish river.

We can only keep our fingers crossed for the late spring and summer.

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Quite how the Gardo netting station can continue to justify killing any salmon they catch from 1st April, many will fail to comprehend……..except to conclude that, if they do, they must want to make money regardless of the effect on a stock which nobody else thinks can withstand exploitation.

Have they caught and killed anything yet? Maybe not, as the weather has been against them, but with boats in the water, the assumption is that they will kill salmon when they can.

I think I last killed any salmon in 2013, but it could have been 2012; as for springers, maybe I killed one 20 years ago, but maybe not.

Most Tweed anglers will kill few if any salmon at all this year, and none before 30th June. Indeed, if the NE drift nets come off from May 2018, rod fishers should be especially restrained, because it is part of the whole EA initiative and justification that the (English) rods return either (a) everything or (b) 90%+ depending on the conservation status of their particular (English) river. The Tweed is not included within the EA’s jurisdiction, but as up to 75% of the salmon saved from the drift nets will come to Scotland, and as the whole point is to “save” as many salmon as possible, there can be no argument for Tweed rods not behaving in as restrained a manner, voluntarily, as their English counterparts must.

By way of contrast, Gardo, it seems, are intent on killing Tweed’s most vulnerable spring salmon stock, just as they did last year. As far as one knows, they have ignored all appeals for constraint, to start killing salmon only in June, once the vulnerable spring run is over. Not only that, but the Gardo net will, of course, be one of the main beneficiaries of the NE drift net closure in that they will inevitably catch, and kill, some of those ”saved” Tweed salmon.

One can only hope that, at some point, they will get their comeuppance for their disregard for all conservation principles.