news/editorial

15 October 2017 News/Editorial

After a very disturbed week weatherwise, with an even more disturbed one forecast to come, no surprise that catches for last week were down to 197 salmon and 13 sea trout, making a total of 5,223 salmon and 1,592 sea trout for the season to 14th October 2017.

--00--

One of the few benefits (well, sometimes) of writing this column every week is that you get views, opinions, theories aplenty from those good enough to read it…..and respond.

What is most striking is that, of late, they have become angry, no matter that in many cases that anger is ill-directed, nonetheless the overriding emotion amongst Tweed anglers out there is fury at the comparative lack of fish.

They feel let down by the owners, the River Tweed Commission (RTC), the Tweed Foundation, the Government, you name it, or, more accurately, by anyone who says you cannot go around killing every goosander, cormorant and seal which ventures up-river.

Because that is exactly what most of them want to do……..despite it being a criminal offence to do any of these things, something for which you can hardly blame the owners or the RTC.

The latter have lobbied long and hard over many years for increases in the licences issued for shooting pisciverous birds, but the establishment at SNH and Government appear extraordinarily reluctant to agree to anyone shooting anything (you have to “scare” the bird first and only then can you shoot it, as if “scaring” will mean any more than it moving to eat more fish 500 yards upstream!?). The “establishment” in Government are all seemingly oblivious, and uncaring, of the slaughter these birds routinely carry out on our juvenile salmon.

And when it comes to Government/SNH sanction for killing seals…….well good luck with that!

My angry correspondents also detest all those west coast fish farmers for spreading sea lice and other pestilences into the sea, and for allowing so many 1,000s of their farmed imitations of the real thing to escape into the open seas. They are even angrier with Government for not just allowing it to happen, but encouraging more and more farmed salmon production exactly where it should not be happening at all, let alone increased.

And of course they hate any form of netting, especially the one (Gardo) which kills rare Tweed springers, but beyond that the North East net fishery which we now know killed a staggering 18,824 salmon in 2016 at a weight of 70.7 tonnes, a figure only exceeded since 2003 (when the NE fishery was reduced) by the 93.1 tonnes in 2011.

So here, very simply and unequivocally, is what my angling correspondents would do “ if they ruled the world”, what you could describe as “The Tweed Anglers’ Manifesto for Saving the Atlantic Salmon”.

1. Within 5 years, all salmon farms to be close-contained, so that they cease to have any impact on the marine environment.

2. A complete ban on the sale of all wild Atlantic salmon; this would extend the current ban on the sale of rod caught fish to those caught by any method, effectively doing away with all netting.

3. Any cormorant or goosander venturing up-river, ie above tidal limits, can legally be shot at any time, without the current limit on numbers and timing.

4. Any seals venturing up-river, above tidal limits, can be shot at any time.

There we have it.

Would it make the difference my angry correspondents clearly hope for?

It would make them feel better certainly, and it would demonstrate that the world was on the side of the salmon, whereas so often now it seems that is far from the case.

But logic tells us that you cannot blame these things alone for the dramatic and sudden decline in the numbers of late running fish from 2014 onwards, the truly epic proportions of which were exaggerated by the Tweed having a record November rod catch of over 4,500 salmon in November 2013, more than have been caught in the autumn months combined September, October and November in any one of the 3 years since 2013.

And if these things were responsible for the collapse, why were the numbers of spring and summer fish completely unaffected, if anything going up in numbers since 2013?

There has been a collapse in grilse numbers here (and on many other rivers), why nobody fully understands (but it has happened before (1905-1925)) and the reasons lie in what is happening in the sea. Sea survival of smolts continues to be far lower than it used to be (5% compared to 30%).

To conclude, I concur with my angry angling correspondents and, if I ruled the world, I would do all of 1 to 4 above, and of course it would make a difference, a rebalancing of the immediate coastal and river environment in favour of our salmon.

But is it the whole answer?

It is not, because the uncontrollable North Atlantic is most of where our salmon population’s fate is decided.

But it would be a declaration of intent in protecting our salmon while they are within our jurisdiction, in the river or just off the coast, and, as such…..

……..I commend it to the House.

--00--

At first glance, there is something funny going on with the rod catch figures for the Tweed, on the one hand, and the numbers caught and killed by the NE net fishery, on the other.

As we are essentially fishing for much the same population, you would think both would either do well, or badly, at the same time.

	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012	2011	2010
Tweed rod catch	7,680	8,091	7,767	14,794	13,185	16,682	23,219
NE Net Catch	18,824	15,863	10,800	16,649	7,318	24,214	19,982

The anomaly is this, that in 2016 the NE nets caught very nearly as many salmon as they did in 2010, but the Tweed rods caught almost exactly one third of what they caught in 2010.

And whereas the NE net fishery is holding up very well over the last 3 years, indeed increasing its catch from 10,800 in 2014 to 18,824 in 2016, the Tweed rod catch is stuck in a rut, at or just below 8,000.

There is an answer, which is that the Tweed rods used to catch most of their fish after 1st September, when the nets stopped fishing. The nets always have caught their fish between 1st June and 31st August, and we know from our own catches (and from the Tyne Riding Mill counter) that the summer run of salmon has increased over the last 3 years.

So, whereas the Tweed rods are no longer catching anything like what they used to in the autumn, the NE nets are fishing exactly when most fish now appear to be trying to get into our rivers, in the summer.

Ergo, the NE nets are doing better and better…….

……..and the Tweed rods are not.