news/editorial

22 August 2021 News/Editorial

Loyal, long suffering and wise readers will be aware of reluctance to predict in these pages. That could apply to anything, but in the matter of salmon, a truly wild and essentially unpredictable resource, it is especially foolish to dabble in any form of forecasting. Events have a nasty habit of making us look like turkeys.

Consider “events” so far. June 2020, 1,143; June 2021, maybe 500. July 2020, 1,836; July 2021, maybe 600. In other words, whereas some 3,000 salmon were caught in these two months last year, 2021 might struggle to get to 1,000, a collapse, no less, of two thirds. Anyone who says they saw that coming, in advance, well, produce the evidence of your miraculous clairvoyance, if you can.

Some will blame the weather and water, just as poor catches are always blamed on “reduced fishing effort”. It is funny how good results are never attributed to good weather and water, or “increased fishing effort”. Ah excuses, excuses. It is, of course, rubbish because whereas all beats above Coldstream might/will suffer in low water conditions, the reverse is true of all beats below Coldstream. For instance, Tillmouth caught 179 in June and July 2020, just 59 in June and July 2021. Starker still, Tweedhill, right down near the tide, caught 178 in June and July 2020, but just 17 in the same two months in 2021.

The brutal truth is that the fish were not there.

So what of August, with 8 fishing days to go? The 2020 total was 1,691, and if 2020 gets to 1,200 by the 31st, that would be good. The score has been rescued by grilse (oh, you saw that coming too, did you?) with our average weight for August here at about 6 1/2lbs, with the 2020 August average weight at 8 ½ lbs, fully 2 lbs higher.

Which brings us back to predictions. What will the autumn bring, will it be like last year where scarcely a fresh fish came in after 1st September (we caught 235 here after 1st September, and just 9 were fresh silver salmon, Malcolm keeps a meticulous score), or will the fresh grilse continue to come in, together even with some bigger salmon, as of yore, pre 2014?

If the rest of this season goes against everything that happened in 2020, as it has so far, then you would not bet against it. All to play for, well maybe, because in the old days if we had caught 100 here by the end of August, we reckoned we would end up with 500+ for the year. But now, I would be happy if we got to 250.

Stop Press: I hear from beats near the sea, that, despite some massive tides last week, there was very little sign of fresh salmon coming in. Make of that what you will. After a small rise in water later today, maybe a foot or so, which could perk things up for a bit, the weather forecast is for hot, dry and sunny for next week. Of course. What else did you expect?