news/editorial

1 March 2015 News/Editorial

Before (again) moving back to more contentious subjects which could affect all anglers in Scotland (100% catch & release and English style rod licensing), how has the Tweed’s February been?

By way of context, over recent years a “good” February has been one when the rod catch gets to around 250. This year it looks something like 130-150, with almost half caught on one beat, the Junction. Fishing conditions, certainly for the first half of the month, could hardly have been better, in contrast to 2014 when it flooded almost all month.

It is, need one say, too early to draw any conclusions. Numbers usually pick up in March, and anglers will want the current unsettled spell of weather to calm down to provide a reasonable chance of success.

After last week’s little difficulty with Andrew Thin saying that rods killing salmon was a significant factor contributing to the decline in salmon stocks on the Tweed (well he didn’t say that quite, but he applied it to Scotland generally, so we must assume he thinks it applies to us too), I want to pick up two issues in the debate which will, if they happen, directly affect the anglers themselves, the customers who at the end of the day pay the bills.

100% CATCH & RELEASE

Maybe I am over-reading this, but there appears to be an emerging consensus towards 100% catch & release being applied everywhere in Scotland, on all rivers and at all times of the year, not just the spring.

Let’s examine what was said by those attending the Scottish Parliamentary Rural Affairs Committee sessions both on the 18th and 25th February.

Andrew Thin (Chairman, Fisheries Review Panel): “The desirable outcome is that the trend towards greater catch & release for rod fishing continues………..It is important to be clear that we would expect and hope that more and more owners of rod beats would move towards 100% catch & release, which is already happening”.

Hughie Campbell-Adamson (Chairman, Salmon & Trout Association Scotland): ”I agree that in a perfect world, we should have no killing of any fish”... and then later... “We are killing too many fish-everyone is killing too many fish.”

Nothing, you would think, could be much clearer than that. Neither made any qualifications eg about different rivers having different stock strengths, about runs later in the season being stronger than those at the start, or indeed about some years salmon runs being stronger than others, or about those rivers who have no nets as compared to those who still do.

Before moving on to what you, the angler, will think of this, my position (if anyone is remotely interested) is that I now have great difficulty killing any salmon I catch, maybe old age, but I prefer to see them go back. In 2014 I killed nothing, not a scale in the freezer, and the year before was not very different.

But, and I know on the Tweed we can be very lucky, there is something faintly ridiculous about saying to the 4 rods who caught 61 on a fly here one day in September 2011:

“Terribly sorry, boys, you cannot kill any, not even a small grilse each, because there isn’t a harvestable surplus.”

Which is why it is wrong, so the argument goes, for Messrs Thin and Campbell-Adamson to speak so absolutely, because it all depends on the level of stocks on the river you are talking about, a very similar point to the one made last week in these pages, and by Nick Yonge (chief exec RTC) at last week’s Committee meeting, and the best people to judge that are the people who run the rivers (with necessary powers reserved to Ministers, where those running rivers act recklessly or irresponsibly), not some “suitable public authority” issuing quotas to kill.

Amid much discussion of salmon numbers actually killed, at last Wednesday’s Committee, it was distressing, yet again, to see the evident blame game going on between the nets’ and the rods’ representatives, as to who was killing most.

Although numbers killed are, of course, relevant, they mean nothing on their own without the context as to how big the total population is, out of which you are killing, as Nick Yonge authoritatively pointed out more than once.

If you kill 1,000 salmon out of a single stock population of 100,000, it is very different from killing 1,000 out of a population of 5,000. With a population of 100,000 there is a built in over-supply out of which you can quite safely assume a “harvestable surplus”; on rivers the size of the Tweed, Tay, Dee or Spey with a single stock component population of 5,000, you almost certainly cannot, and should kill nothing.

And nobody asked the most important question of all, which is:

“How can you possibly say that killing a salmon is doing harm, unless you have evidence, on the best scientific advice, that doing so will reduce the river’s maximum production of smolts into the sea?”...for producing the maximum number of smolts is, very nearly, what salmon river management is all about.

When Messrs Thin and Campbell-Adamson said, in so many words, that rods should kill nothing, move towards 100% catch & release, do they know anything about Tweed stocks of salmon, have they asked our team of three highly professional biologists, headed by Dr Ronald Campbell, for their view based on the work they do, day in day out, on the river? Have they asked Ronald if he thinks killing some autumn fish here will result in fewer smolts being produced…. or have they asked to see the electrofishing results of the fry sampling work carried out in all our tributaries on a rolling basis over 3 years?

You bet.....they have not.

I leave it to you to assess the reasons for them saying such things, but they should not speak for the Tweed (or any river, other than their own, for that, after all, is the whole point of individual catchment based management) without knowing what they are talking about.

My concern….. that all this will merge into some sort of hideous political correctness, so that anyone who kills anything is vilified by the “holier than thou” brigade, the pc police, simply because killing becomes unacceptable, regardless of the facts.

Indeed, that same brigade will be the quickest to jump on that hoary old bandwagon...viz that you shouldn’t be sticking a hook in a salmon’s mouth if you know, before you do it, that you are not going to kill it to eat.

Now I believe, as, one hopes, all right thinking anglers do, that the conservation and economic arguments for catch and release trump that particular piece of the moral maize we all inhabit…….but if you go on with 100% catch & release when there is no conservation need for it (because there is an abundance of a particular stock), then I am not so sure.

And why are these advocates of “no killing” saying these things? What makes them think they can speak for every river in Scotland?

Forgive me if I detect the faintest whiff of central control, of being dictated to from above... already!

So there we have it….. do you, the paying customer, the ghillies, those who actually fish and work on our rivers, think of all this, of the apparent intent from the movers and shakers above us, to get us to put everything back at all times and in all places?

Do you think salmon fishing in Scotland should be 100% catch & release, without qualification?

ROD LICENCES TO FISH

Quite distinct from licences to kill, the Wild Fisheries Review discusses bringing into Scotland general rod licences, without which it would be illegal to fish.

England has had this for ever (2014/15 trout and coarse fish £27pa, and migratory fish £72pa, with reduced rates for the young, old and disabled) but Scotland never has.

What is agreed by all parties in this debate is that the Scottish fisheries management system lacks funds, especially if it is to manage all species, and will get nothing from the public purse.

Plan A of the Fisheries Review, to collect levies from rivers/ fishery owners centrally and then to divert some from the richer to the poorer rivers, seems to achieve not very much (a point again well made by Nick Yonge before the Committee last week), because it will both (a) not raise very much money and (b) without that money which is diverted elsewhere, what is it that the richer rivers will not be able to do, which they did before, when they had their own “diverted” money?

It would seem to be simply shuffling the same pack, whereas what is needed is another pack.

I am a fan of rod licensing being introduced into Scotland, despite our own trout angling clubs being against it, understandably because they are struggling anyway and any further pecuniary burden will not help.

But, I was very impressed by Ron Woods, from the Scottish Federation for Coarse Angling, who, in the debate last week, was all in favour and produced some very compelling arguments to support the rod licensing case.

Politically, it could be tricky because of the history (or lack of it) in Scotland, but if rates are set very sympathetically for the young, old and disabled, and very much lower full rates than in England (say £15 pa for coarse and trout, and £45 pa for salmon and sea trout), it seems the obvious way to go.

Neither seems an exorbitant amount, but it will be a brave thing for Government to bring in, however logical, and much will depend on soundings taken far wider than any Parliamentary Committee room.

So there we have it, two key issues for the future:

1. Will we have rod licensing “a la mode anglaise”, at (hopefully) reduced/ more sympathetic rates, if, transparently, the proceeds were to go to improving all freshwater fisheries throughout Scotland? and

2. Will we have 100% catch and release for rods catching salmon throughout the season everywhere in Scotland, if not by law or by central direction, then by unstoppable peer pressure?

and crucially if we had either or both of these, what would you, the anglers and the ghillies, think, would you support it all and still come here...or even, perhaps, would you be more likely to come here, to fish in Scotland?

Answers on a postcard please….. or even to info@tweedbeats.com.

If any readers are good enough to reply, these pages will report back on what is said, the balance of opinion, and on any especially pertinent and compelling comments made.

For the full transcript of last week’s Parliamentary Committee on the Wild Fisheries Review see

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28862.aspx?r=9801&i=89867#.VPCzSOEnkXk