24 July 2022 News/Editorial
So summer droughts have always happened, 1959 and 1976 famously spring to mind. Nothing new there, you might say, except now we have three (2018, 2021 and 2022) in the last five years. Maybe not as renowned as those of yore, for they are becoming the norm, no longer remarkable. So it is with global warming, we are told, not that things are different per se, more that everything is more so than it was.
Tweed salmon evolution appears to have it seriously wrong. Why, you ask, do Tweed salmon come in, or want to, in the summer just as it becomes nigh on impossible for them to do so? Pre 2014 we Tweed anglers worried not about the summers, confidence almost amounting to arrogance, that all would be well when September and October arrived, when the fish would appear in massive numbers, coinciding with the autumn rains. Good summer fishing was a bonus, now it is the main event.
Scant comfort can be derived from the knowledge that all other, bar the mighty Tay, so mighty (twice the average flow of its nearest competitor the Tweed) it is comparatively untroubled by drought, east and north coast rivers are in much the same “high and dry” boat.
By way of going to the Naver last week until my car broke down half way up the A9 (don’t ever speak to me about the RAC, the Chairman is in for an earful), it was, I am told, a forlorn sight for anglers. The last time I was there was in 2018, we never even put rods up, so low was it. In other words we weeded and droughted Tweedsiders are not alone.
To the fore is the whole matter of water security for our salmon rivers. Together with much talk of riparian tree planting to cool the water, there is concern that our Tweed catchment sewage systems are not exactly in top notch, modern state; can they cope when new houses are built and do they need major renewal and expansion; does Scottish Water have the funds for that? Even if they do, it will take years to complete. There is clearly an issue with water abstraction from the river when it is at its weakest, in mid summer. I walked the dogs every evening last week, thanks to my absence from the Naver, to the drum of water-pumping engines going flat out across the river for potatoes; it cannot be right to allow that when looking at the dreadful state of the weed-filled river. And then there are our reservoirs; will there come a time when some SEPA manager, poor luckless person, is in the unenviable position of deciding whether to preserve our water, yes our Tweed water, for the good folk of Edinburgh to drink, or to release it to save our fish from catastrophe? In that scenario, inevitably our fish will come second.
As for now, there has been rain overnight Saturday/Sunday and the Ettrick has risen over 2ft at the very top, Teviot and Upper Tweed less so. This will result in a rise of 6” or less down by Kelso/ Coldstream. Nothing like enough, you would say, but when in survival mode for our fish, it is welcome. Those on the river last Monday and Tuesday (my thermometer got to 36c on Tuesday midday) saw some dead fish, but disaster was averted thanks to the Wednesday cool.
And so it goes on, as it will until we have a 4ft+ flood. If nothing else, it concentrates minds and we would be negligent as river managers if we do not do, now, all that we can to protect and preserve our fish from the damaging effects of summer drought and heat for the future. With the Tyne, Tweed is the furthest south of the still successful great salmon rivers, the creeping effects of global warming being all too obvious if you look at the other English salmon rivers south of us, and how they are performing.
There is much work to do.
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