20 August 2022 News/Editorial
With very few salmon (under 50) caught last week, despite a 10-20F drop in water temperature, this report will be suitably curtailed, for there is little to say that has not been said ad nauseam over the last few weeks/months, as the river has remained stubbornly well below summer level.
I am told that many of the few fish landed were caught spinning, because for some reason a spinner attracted fewer bits of weed than a fly. The frustrations of cleaning your fly, of weed, after almost every cast can test the patience of most fishers.
There is still no sign in forecasts of appreciable rain, although as the prognoses of weather warnings, thunderstorms and deluges have all been wrong thus far, it would be no surprise if we get rain just when it is not forecast.
It is ironic that SEPA has finally banned water abstractions, farmers for their crops, golf courses for their greens etc, just as the farmers are stopping irrigating their potatoes anyway. Some golf courses used the last 24 hours pre the ban to extract as much water as possible, some even closing the course to golfers whilst water came deluging out of every pipe and sprinkler head. They clearly think that the survival of fish comes a long way below their green greens in the great scheme of things.
As for our salmon, we can only conclude that they are still in the sea, as it is all but impossible for them to enter the river. And so it will remain until we get that most elusive of commodities.
Water.
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