news/editorial

17 April 2016 News/Editorial

As we get just past the half-way mark in Tweed’s spring accounting (spring salmon catches are taken as the 5 months to end of June), how is spring 2016 going?

Typical just about sums it up, both in terms of numbers and in where they are being caught.

For the latter, within 5 miles either side of Kelso would account for the majority of the catches; for the former, numbers, the total at the half-way point looks to be about 750, by no means bad, with the better half of the spring still to come.

The worst springs in the past have struggled to get much over 1,000 (2009 was the worst in recent times at 1,147) , and the best have just exceeded 3,000 (2011 was the best recently at 3,072).

And for those beats not within 5 miles either side of Kelso, as the water settles and becomes warmer, the chances at Tillmouth, Tweedmill, Milne Graden, Ladykirk etc at the bottom become much better, as do those of Boleside and the Pavilion beats at the top.

The oddity about springers is the speed with which they travel, not content, unlike their summer and autumn colleagues, to linger at all below Coldstream, in a hurry, it always seems, to get to Kelso.

In the past, this has, quite wrongly, been blamed on seals chasing them upstream.

Much more likely is the lack of friends, as the lowest beats will be devoid of any other salmon in February and March (and, this year especially, no kelts either) to act as decoys, whereas as the year progresses those lower beats fill up with resident salmon and sea trout, and fresh fish coming off the tide will find lots of friends as soon as they hit purely fresh (as opposed to salt and brackish) water.

It can seem then that the salmon struggle to get as far as Kelso and beyond.

So there it is…...at half-time this spring 2016….. much to look forward to, for all beats, whether upper, middle or lower, as we enter the calmer waters of late spring and early summer…….and, for me, those lovely long evenings as the days stretch out into mid summer.

By far, my favourite time of year, a time of hope.