19 June 2016 News/Editorial
There is something about being on the river in Scotland over the next 2 months which even the dreaded midge cannot stop.
The pilgrimage of a peculiarly English, mainly upper/middle class, tribe northwards in their Chelsea tractors, otherwise used for tackling the cross country terrain of the Kings Road in London, has already begun, but gathers pace to a crescendo in July and August (after the 12th, some bearing arms to demolish those poor little grouse birds), before tailing off in September and October.
And apart from the later, almost autumnal, lure of knocking off those avian masters of the moor and the monarchs of the glens, this pilgrimage is all based on those silvery things which come into our plentiful and glorious Scottish rivers, to spawn.
Tweed is not on the summer radar of these alien pilgrims, being too far south for the romance of the journey by motor up the A9, or the sleeper to Carrbridge and Inverness, and crucially lacking the heather, the peaty water, the Highland landscape…... and of course those bloody midges.
For Tweed has not, in recent times, had June and July summer salmon in any numbers, or at least not which escaped the nets.
Could this be changing?
Once those still operating by drift and T&J net off the Northumbrian coast, up to 75% of their catch being Scottish salmon, are reduced within the next 5 years, or better still gone altogether, the Tweed’s summer salmon fishing should improve.
It may not have the summer pilgrimage romance of the Spey, Findhorn or Helmsdale, but with summer rain it could be as good or even better than any of these.
It will be interesting in the next 10 weeks, to the end of August, to see how things go.
The indications, despite there being very little water now, is that there are some salmon, if, so far, a surprising shortage of sea trout.
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The campaign not to allow the salmon we release to be subjected to prolonged air exposure goes on.
July’s Trout & Salmon magazine has Fishpal’s Gallery with what appear be a number of salmon way out of the water, held with the angler’s hands pressing on their stomachs, and in one case so far up the shingle and out of the water that the water is barely visible in the picture.
What is the point of Fishpal telling everyone, quite rightly, not to take salmon being released out of the water, then publishing photos of exactly that, salmon well out of the water purely for the purpose of photographing?
It has to stop, and Fishpal need to put the wellbeing of the salmon being released before their own commercial interest…...as should Trout & Salmon magazine.