news/editorial

27 August 2023 News/Editorial

With around 160 salmon caught as per the two websites (maybe 250 for the river, to include non reporters), the total, the least good of the last three weeks, was partly a result of a disturbed week in which the river rose three or four times, the last on Saturday from thunderstorms throughout the catchment, producing not just a 2ft rise, but also bright red colour from Leader and Gala.

Salmon do not like constant ups and downs in river levels, they never quite settle in the pools and can be harder to catch.

“Partly a result” (as per above) was carefully worded to cover the comparative lack of fish; some may argue with that view, but there is an uncomfortable feeling, which subsequent events will hopefully prove unfounded, that the main part of the summer/early autumn run is already behind us. Run timings of recent years would certainly tend to that conclusion, but there are still fresh sea-liced salmon and grilse being caught, in itself a break from recent years when most beats only saw coloured “river” fish after mid August.

So there is hope that fresh salmon will continue to enter the river, lack of water being absolutely not an issue. It is a nervous time, waiting to see what happens. But waiting is all we can do.

Not so long ago, we here would be happy to have caught 100 by the end of August, knowing full well that September, October and November were all to come, and that more than likely we would end up with 400-500 salmon as the catch for the year.

As this is being written, most probably we will reach 150 by the end of August, but with very few salmon in the beats below us and with (possibly) not much still to come in from the sea, the smart money is on ending up with a total of 200-300 here, at best. Nobody would be happier if that proves to be wrong and that we exceed those seemingly modest expectations.

As for next week, Monday will show a drop in river heights, but the water will still be coloured. The weather will be settled until Thursday/Friday when more rain, possibly heavy, is forecast.

And so the generally unsettled theme, characteristic of July and August, continues, on balance a good thing for the fishing, but will there be any fish?

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Anyone entering the hatchery debate does so at their peril. Ahem!

Here are some extracts of a July report into the Columbia River in Oregon, USA. It is a cautionary tale. The Victorians, back here in the UK, started big hatchery programmes on many Scottish rivers in the second half of the 19th century, and gave them all up, as they did not work. Something similar is now happening in the USA; instead of throwing money at the problem with hatcheries and getting negative results, they are now stopping the hatcheries, and concentrating on making dams passable, improving habitat and all the things we have been doing here for years. At the very least, it might make those who believe hatcheries to be the magic bullet not only think that life is seldom that simple, but where is the money, for highly uncertain results, going to come from? Here is the link for those who want to read it all https://idahocapitalsun.com/2023/08/04/billions-spent-on-hatcheries-habitat-fails-to-help-native-columbia-river-salmon-study-finds/

“Decades of data show that despite billions in taxpayer investment, salmon and steelhead hatchery programs and restoration projects in the Columbia River Basin have failed to support or boost native fish populations and in fact are contributing to their decline.

“The actual impact of all of these efforts has always been poorly understood,” Jaeger said in a news release.

There are about 200 salmon hatchery programs in the Columbia River Basin, and 80% of all salmon and steelhead that return to the Columbia River as adults started their lives in hatcheries, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries division.

The cost to taxpayers to maintain these hatcheries during the last 40 years has been about 9 billion when adjusted for inflation, according to Jaeger. This does not include any of the money spent by local governments or nonprofits and nongovernment agencies.

“We found no evidence in the data that the restoration spending is associated with a net increase in wild fish abundance,” Jaeger said.

David Moskowitz, executive director of the nonprofit Conservation Angler which works to protect wild salmon and steelhead, said 9 billion dollars in the last four decades is probably a low figure.

“That doesn’t even take into account the costs of all the management that goes on,” he said.

“The hatchery promise was made without any idea if it would work. It was a failed promise,” Moskowitz said.

Prior to damming, an estimated 16 million salmon and steelhead returned to the Columbia River in the area above what is now Bonneville Dam each year. But by the 1970s, less than 1 million were returning.

By 1991, 12 runs of Columbia River salmon and steelhead were listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, leading to a boom in restoration and hatchery spending, the researchers found.

An investigation by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica last year found that several federally-subsidized hatcheries on the Columbia River — responsible for 80% of all the salmon in the Columbia River — spent between 250 to 650 for every hatchery salmon that returned.

Efforts to increase the salmon and steelhead population in the Columbia to 5 million by 2025 are not on target, Jaeger found. Annual adult returns at the dam averaged about 1.5 million in the previous decade, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“We’ve lost so much,” Moskowitz said. “It is a death by a thousand cuts, but we’re just whacking ourselves in the back of the head, too, by spending so much on hatchery fish.”

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Every so often I look at the catches on other rivers, largely thanks to Fishpal. The Dee and the Tay, like us, are doing ok, not as good as Tweed, but nothing very exciting. The Thurso, one of those north coast rivers where one suspects the smolts have an easier life once they get to sea than our smolts, is doing well and is well ahead of its 5 years average to date. The Findhorn has had a rough time with rampant saprolegnia decimating their spring run, but has had a good July and ok August thus far. A friend of mine went to the Ness in June and did ok, but since then the figures are not brilliant.

In short, no rivers are shooting the lights out. One fears the end of term report for the 2023 rod catch of Scottish salmon might be a bit depressing. “Could do a lot better” as my school reports consistently said.