news/editorial

18 June 2017 News/Editorial

Last week’s catches here were good, but patchy, with Upper Floors leading on 27 salmon, and the Tweed total at over 200.

You will not find this 200 catch figure anywhere, it is taken from the Fishpal and Tweedbeats totals, deducting duplications, and then adding in an estimate for main stem “non-reporters” like Lennel, Tweedmill, Cornhill, Carham, Gledswood and Upper Pavilion .

By contrast, because the vast majority of the Tay and Dee beats report to Fishpal, we know that the salmon totals for last week were 118 (Tay) and 266 (Dee).

We also know from past years that the “reporting” beats on Fishpal and Tweedbeats represent no more than about 70% of the total Tweed catch. Not only are there the absent 5 or 6 main stem beats (as mentioned above), but many of the tributary catches are missing altogether. This has little effect on the reported spring numbers because, except on the Whiteadder, they catch very few salmon before July, but will produce a significant understatement of the whole river catch in the autumn.

Opinions are sharply divided as to what, if anything, should be done about it.

The advantage of the status quo is that there is accuracy of reporting at beat level, without any compulsion for those beats who, for perfectly legitimate reasons of their own, do not want to publish their catches.

The disadvantage is that the only figure you can easily find for the Tweed is on Fishpal (http://www.fishpal.com/FishingInformation/Catches.asp) which shows 101 salmon as Tweed’s last week total, when the reality is more than double that.

Some say this devalues the Tweed in the angling public’s mind, and makes Tweed look bad when compared to other rivers. Others think it does not matter.

The purist would say you should never show a total purporting to be something, if it is not that something, even if you say, as Fishpal do, that the total is only of those beats reporting to Fishpal. How many people read these caveats, but simply focus on the figures shown, believing them to be a true record of the total Tweed catch?

As such, so the argument goes, anything other than an accurate total would be better not shown at all.

So there we have it. Fishpal produce weekly Tweed totals which always understate the full catch, as last week sometimes by 50% or more.

But, as so many main stem and tributary beats never report, and do not want to, is anything to be done to make things better?

Those self same purists would say that you either produce accurate, correct totals….or nothing at all.

At present, we on the Tweed do neither.