17 May 2020 News/Editorial
Much to talk about this week? What could possibly be interesting in lockdown?
First, the awkward question of England being able to fish when the rest of the river, and all Scots, cannot.
Then a short bit about how even when Scotland is allowed to fish, it will make little difference to owners’ letting, as so many tenants come from afar.
Next we have some, thankfully, welcome good news of a huge smolt run from the Gala Water.
And finally, there is always that salmon angler’s favourite subject, the net at Gardo, selling their salmon, our now dead springers, to some high-end foodie purveyors in London.
Amid all the current drama, the best news is that there are some fish, at present mainly below Coldstream, and, as levels continue to drop, sustained success may remain there as the fish find it harder to go any further. I fear those unwelcome upstream flying condoms will have quite an airing if the weather heats up and fish become harder to catch. Let us hope it does not happen, but some forecasters, by no means all, even predict serious drought as the summer starts.
For the moment, I hear one rod caught 15 all on a fly in just 2 pools at Tillmouth yesterday, an amazing day and one he will always remember. Both Waltham & Dritness (who do not report on any website), and Horncliffe just above, caught over 20 for their 4 days fishing. I do not recall scores like that being recorded anywhere on the Tweed in the whole of 2019.
Pleasing as that all is, you have to feel sorry for Tweedhill, Ladykirk, Milne Graden, Tweedmill and Lennel who can only watch from the other side, when there are lots of fish about and at least some of those caught would normally have been caught by them.
So much for the preamble.
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Scots sneaking over to England to fish when they should not? The English coming back into Scotland, then going back over the river again to fish in England, which they also should not? Anglers playing fast and loose with where exactly in the river the border is, and moving, sometimes fishing, the wrong side of it, which again they should not? If ever the wisdom of the Tweed Acts, where the whole river is treated as one, was apparent, it is now that we have enforced division. Confusion reigns and laws are being broken, often, not always, unwittingly. It is a mess.
Something very odd happened last week. The Tweed always does things together, or at least it has done post 1807 when Sir Walter Scott and his neighbour living at Pavilion, Lord Somerville, succeeded in pushing the first Tweed Act through Parliament. Ever since, despite most of the south bank from Carham to Berwick (and some of the very lowest north bank) being in England, whereas all the rest is in Scotland, its fish and fisheries have been administered by the Tweed Commissioners as a single indivisible, unified entity.
On Wednesday, after over 200 years, that Tweed unity broke. Coronavirus compliance laws in England and Scotland diverged, so that those coming from England can fish on the English side, while those living in Scotland cannot fish anywhere on the Tweed. The River Tweed Commission issued the following guidance https://www.rivertweed.org.uk/news/?p=6693
I was rung by the three beats opposite to ask if I minded if they started fishing on Wednesday, casting into our water, into a different country, a country where the rules do not permit what they were asking to do. A little known fact is that neither bank has the right legally to cast over the halfway line, because you can have no legal rights to fishing in a country in which you have no title to do that. That we all do it is by tacit or actual permission given, a reciprocal arrangement that works to everyone’s advantage.
I would have been perfectly within my rights to say “no” to the requests from those in England that they fish in our Scottish waters, because the essential reciprocity ie they can fish towards us and we can fish towards them, is now missing. Had I done that, which I have not, they would still have been able to fish, but only in their English half of the river. Were it to have happened the other way around, that we Scots could fish and England could not, no doubt Scotland would have started fishing, just as the English have now.
All of which is both sad and potentially divisive, the latter the more it continues. From Wednesday last week, numbers of Scottish residents were crossing from Scotland into England to fish on the south bank of the Tweed, when they should not (see the RTC guidance), something they most probably knew but decided to ignore; this can only get worse. Others were simply breaking the law and fishing in Scotland, the wrong side of the border line.
Let us hope that this enforced division on Tweed ends soon, and never ever happens again.
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It is a common misconception that when the ban on fishing in Scotland is lifted, all will be well with Tweed’s fishing.
It will not. I have analysed our June and July tenants hoping to come here soon. Only 14 out of 162 rod days are let to those who can get here and return home the same day. Which means the other 148 cannot come here and will, if the law stays the same until then, be asked either to roll over to next year or receive their money back.
Until both travel and accommodation restrictions are relaxed, which will only be by 4th July in England at the earliest, presumably later in Scotland, and only then if the infection rates allow, the letting market will be limited to locals, so that many beats will lose almost all income until b&bs, self catering and pubs/hotels are unlocked.
Which is not a happy prospect.
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The latest smolt tracking news from the Gala Water is both extraordinary and uplifting. The Tweed Foundation has caught, in the Gala trap, nearly 9,000 salmon smolts representing only a proportion of the total run. The total run from this one small tributary could be between 20,000 and 30,000, far far higher than the previous two years, both anecdotally, to observers at least, heavy smolt runs themselves.
The tagged smolts are now progressing downstream at leisurely pace, not necessarily a bad thing as they grow stronger by eating on the way down, before meeting their new environment in the sea. With no rain forecast for some weeks, they will get little help from increased water flows, and we will find out soon enough how many of those 200+ tagged make it to Berwick intact.
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It seems our conservation minded netters at Gardo are having success.
Forman & Field in London are selling, on enquiry, fresh Tweed salmon, newly in, for £246 per lb. Struggling to maintain any equilibrium, I spluttered “ Sorry, can’t afford it” and rang off.
If you happen to be a customer of F&F, it would do no harm to enquire if they subscribe to both conservation and sustainable fishing practices with the wild fish they sell?
You and I know the correct answer, one suspects they do not.
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