news/editorial

20 February 2022 News/Editorial

The February rainfall average pre 2020 was not much above 1.5 inches. The old mantra used to be that February was the driest (and coldest) month of the year, and August the wettest.

Since 2019, neither has been true.

In 2020 and 2021 fishing in February was a non-event, nearly 4 inches of rain falling here in both, with much more than that where the Tweed catchment rises west of Hawick and Peebles. 2022 is shaping up the same way, despite a benign and dryish beginning.

With rain today and forecasts of more in the coming remainder of February, without being too gratuitously downbeat, a realistic assessment might be that this month might follow its two February predecessors, into flooded oblivion.

My old farming clients, in those far off days in the office, would routinely say, after a glorious and perfect-for-farming six weeks of weather, “Aye, but we’ll pay for it later”. January was both exceptionally benign and dry; we are paying for it now; as usual, those old farmers were right.

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If there is one good thing about the weather and water levels, at the risk of tempting fate, thus far there have been no really massive winter floods (9ft + at Sprouston as I write but hopefully won’t go much more above that) which can so endanger the lives of those little hatching/hatched salmon and trout. Many are blissfully unaware that the success of their fishing in 2024, 2025 and 2026 might depend on both weather and water conditions in the headwaters right now, in February 2022.

That salmon spawning happens much earlier now than in the heady days of pre 2014, and our huge autumn runs, is a given. I am never sure what that means in terms of the period of maximum danger for our hatching eggs, alevins and resulting fry, but you would think that as we near March, the possibility of their lives being brutally disrupted, as they grow larger and stronger, is receding.

Surprisingly, one enemy, those large cormorant flocks, has been absent here for the last few days. Wishful thinking no doubt, but maybe they have been blown back to the coast, maybe the water is too dirty for them to see their prey, or maybe they have eaten so many trout etc here that the sea is now easier pickings for them. Whatever, I could do with a period of walking by the river without that involuntary growl whenever one of those black killing machines flies over, looking for lunch.