26 April 2015 News/Editorial
Did you know that the Tweed salmon rod catch, on its own, can be the same as the cumulative total of salmon caught by rod in all the salmon rivers (over 70 of them) in England and Wales?
I will come back to this later….bear with me, if you will.
Last week I received an e-mail from a fellow Tweed proprietor….”had I seen the Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA) response to the licensing to kill consultation, because it comes out in favour of the whole scheme?” or words to that effect.
He was, rightly, concerned that this would be confusing for Tweed anglers, gillies and owners, because the Tweed’s position is that, based on good science, and supported by a peer reviewed paper from the Tweed foundation, there is no conservation case for including the rods.
Indeed, even the S&TA in their response say “it is hard to think of any river where angling alone is threatening the stock”.
And therein lies the essence of the problem with all this.
On the Tweed, where spawning escapement is now higher than it has ever been (I give below the Tweed average rod catches per decade going back to the 1950s, rod catches being a very good indication of relative spawning populations), if it is true of other rivers that rods killing salmon is not threatening stocks, it is that much more true for the Tweed.
Tweed also has virtually no netting, having bought up/leased all netting rights bar a very few minor ones.
S&TA might deny it, they might not, but if “it is hard to think of any river where angling alone is threatening…..”, then we must be talking about the nets.
In a nutshell, that is what S&TA is aiming at, understandably concerned at the uncontrolled nature both of the number of nets and how many they kill…...to say nothing of which rivers’ salmon they are killing?
But what of Tweed rod anglers, gillies/boatmen and fishery owners?
Let us consider the human side of all this.
Is S&TA seriously saying that when Tweed’s autumn rod salmon catch can be as high as 20,000, indicating a peak population of maybe 200,000, 100,000+ on average, that gillies and anglers here are going to understand, and agree with, the need for quotas and tagging on conservation grounds?
It would be laughable, and we all know that if you do not get “buy in”, if the people you rely on to operate a system, see no need for it, indeed oppose it, it will fall into disrepute, possibly involving mass disregard for it, despite potentially draconian fines. Are the Tweed bailiffs going to police a system which neither they nor anybody else on the Tweed believes in?
In human terms, you cannot impose something like this where there is demonstrably no need...well of course Governments can, but will it/can it work without support?
So is there a compromise?
Let us assume:
(a) deny it as they might, that S&TA are really all about the proliferation of and unfettered killing by nets, and
(b) that the Tweed is unconcerned about nets, because it has none (I am trying here to ignore the Northumbrian drift and T&J nets) and is therefore convinced that with 100% catch and release up to 30th June, and with a very obvious harvestable surplus thereafter, its current conservation management regime is entirely appropriate, with a large safety margin, without any further controls.
The answer, therefore, is to find a system that satisfies both, and blanket imposition of licensing, tagging and quotas on everyone, regardless of conservation status, is not it.
For instance, can anyone seriously think that imposing quotas and tagging on the Tweed in the autumn is either proportionate or necessary?
And it is the “quotas and tagging” bit that really sticks in the throat and will not get buy-in from gillies and anglers here.
There is a compromise to be had here, but I simply cannot see that precise equivalence, exactly the same regime of control, for both rods and nets, can ever work.
Won't the nets have to accept that the price of killing everything they catch and selling them (neither of which the rods do) is licensing, numbered tagging and, in the case of mixed stock nets, quotas as well?
For the rods, it is simple, if a river cannot demonstrate at any time of year (typically early running fish), or at all, a harvestable surplus, it should not be allowed to kill anything at all for that period or for the whole year, no quotas, no tags.
Rivers should have to prove a harvestable surplus for periods when killing will be allowed, annually, via a standard reporting regime.
On the Tweed, this would simply formalise what we have now, no killing up to 30th June, and then an allowance, but no quotas and no tagging, after 1st July, for rods to kill , as they do now, unrestricted but typically, in practice, no more than 1 in 3 (33 1/3%) of the catch, comfortably less than 5% of the population.
Indeed,the impossibility of setting quotas in advance in terms of numbers, as envisaged by the WFR, is overcome completely if you deal in percentages/proportions of the whole, because percentages/proportions work perfectly on all strengths of salmon runs (which can vary by a factor of 4 viz 2010 and 2014).
Percentages, and proportions eg 1 in 3, are sensitive to higher and lower runs of salmon in the way that absolute numbers (as in numerical quotas) are not.
But please note S&TA, if you stick to your line for the rods, then you come down here in the autumn and try telling our boatmen/gillies why they should have quotas and tagging imposed on them.
Good luck with that!
And in case anyone is in any doubt as to the parlous state of Tweed’s stocks which now merits quotas and tagging for rods, the best indicator of spawning escapement is the rod catch. I have shown these figures before (the average Tweed annual salmon rod catch per decade), but here they are again:
1950s 3,500
1960s 6,500
1970s 5,000
1980s 8,000
1990s 9,500
2000s 12,000
2010s 15,000
The figures speak for themselves.
Tweed’s spawning escapement has never been higher.
As an aside, it would be odd, would it not, if, for instance, our nearest river, the Northumbrian River Tyne, in England, which catches 75% less than the Tweed, will have no tagging and quotas for rods?
So...back to where this week’s effort started.
In 2013, the total rod catch for all the 70+ rivers in England and Wales was 14,920 salmon; the Tweed on its own caught 14,794.
Is S&TA saying that a single river in Scotland, which catches as many salmon as all the rivers in England and Wales put together, should have quotas and tagging, but not one of the 70+ English and Welsh rivers should?
Where is the logic in that?
There is, of course, no logic….it cannot happen.
There has to be a compromise, which satisfies both other Scottish rivers’ and S&TA’s real concerns about netting, and recognises that imposing quotas and tagging on rods on rivers such as the Tweed, where there is demonstrably no conservation purpose or need, cannot be justified.
A compromise will be there somewhere which meets the concerns of all, including of course, most importantly, the Scottish Government and its international commitments….we just need to find it.
As ever, all sides will have to give a bit to achieve it.
It can, and must, be done.
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