news/editorial

24 October 2021 News/Editorial

With the balance of catches shifting very markedly upstream last week, it seems that the numbers that were resident at Tillmouth, Ladykirk and all points below Coldstream, for months, have finally moved en masse.

With a mild and wet week forecast, you would expect the fish to keep travelling. There is some more water coming down all main tributaries as I write.

The colour and condition of those caught here last week is becoming ever more extreme, so that spawning cannot be very far off for many of them.

We have been lucky and have caught 126 salmon here since 1st September. For the first time since the autumn decline of 2014, Malcolm’s red pen marking any silver/fresh fish caught since 1st September has remained unused.

As an aside, I will bet you that everyone now is overestimating the weights of what they catch. I assume that there is 100% catch and release on the grounds that it would be almost criminal (it is illegal to kill gravid fish) to kill any of these fish we are catching. You should not lift them from the water if possible, leave them under water as much as possible, and extract the hook. Ergo you can only judge the weight by looking at them. They look like 15lbs, but probably only weigh 12lbs. Just saying.

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By way of further reflection on 2021, the similarities with 2018 are clear, right down to the likely total catch for the year. Few fish in the spring, a significant influx of summer salmon and grilse for about 6/8 weeks July to mid August, then very little in the way of incoming fresh fish after that.

When this profile coincides with a “good summer” or drought, worse still both, it is pretty devastating for angling prospects, bar a very few lucky beats down near the tide. The majority of the fishing beats are effectively out of action for most of the year. Worse still, when the fish do move, late September or October, they are in a hurry and give few, and brief, angling opportunities.

Consider those wonderful northern rivers, the Naver, Thurso and Halladale. Both in 2018 and 2021, they have hardly been able to fish for lack of water. The Thurso has an average catch of over 1,300, but in 2018 struggled to 505, and in 2021, just ended, they reached 633. More remarkable still is that they were on just 314 with 2 weeks to go, then came the long awaited flood, and they caught 319 in the last 2 weeks before the river closed.

The Tweed is no spate river and the fish can at least get in from the sea at all times, but the point is the same ie if you are wholly dependent on summer fish for your numbers, the risks of both summer heat and drought making angling difficult/impossible, are that much greater.

Our strength used to be the length our season and variety of our salmon stocks. Since 2014, our fresh autumn running fish have declined out of all recognition, the early/mid spring, far from getting better, seems to have declined (see below), which leaves us wholly dependent, for any abundance, on the summer, previously Tweed’s weakest time.

It is all very different, and a bit unsettling.

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The Tweed’s habit of including June catches in its spring numbers is confusing, arguably wrong, because almost everyone admits that from mid-June at the latest they are summer salmon/grilse.

Excluding 2020, when there was minimal pre May fishing, the pre 31st May catches for the last 4 years have been:

2017 1165

2018 727

2019 1238

2021 1,000 (best estimate)

This gives a 4 year average of 1,032. The inclusion of 2020 to make a 5 year average would almost certainly have increased it above 1,032, because anecdotally there were plenty of fish about in April and May, albeit not in February and March (for most of which there was fishing pre the 23rd March lockdown) when the catches were just 19 for February and 127 for March.

The 7 year catch average, to 31st May, before that (2010-2016 inc.) was 1,752.

1,032 is a 41% decrease on the previous 7 year average.

The Ettrick (where most of our springers go) fish counter figures for 2018-2020 were:

2018 1,216

2019 1,533

2020 2,841

Giving an average of 1,863 for the 3 years.

The only reasonably recent figures we have before that are the 11 years 1999-2009, when twice the count was over 4,000, 6 times over 3,000, twice over 2,500, only once below 2,500 (2,418 in 2007).

Giving an average of 3,494. The 3 years average 2018-2020 of 1,863 represents a 46% drop on the 11 years 1999-2009 average of 3,494.

Some may recall that we started partial catch and release, in the 1990s, with the aim of keeping the Ettrick numbers over 3,000. Now with full 100% catch and release in the spring since 2010, we seem to be falling well short of that.

Not only that, but we are told that the new Ettrick fish pass may be more accessible than the old one, pre 2009, to later running fish, so that the 2018-2020 numbers may well include non springers.

There may be little more we can do in the short term, but it would be a start to recognise that there may be a problem, not just with the lack of fresh running autumn fish, but also, or so it seems, with our spring.