28 April 2019 News/Editorial
66 salmon and 8 sea trout were caught last week, making the totals to 27th April - 513 salmon and 56 sea trout. Beats downstream of Coldstream caught more than they normally would at this time of year, which may well continue until what rain there is stops avoiding the Tweed catchment.
With nothing more than showers forecast in the coming week, more of the same seems to be the message for anglers, as the water levels continue to decline after a very minor rise, of a few inches only, today (Sunday). With a third of the year already gone, rainfall in 2019 has been exceptionally low, bar a soggy first two weeks of March. The law of averages would point to a wet summer, but what has been predicted so far by the Met Office for May, seems to indicate yet more mainly dry weather.
But then they are, by no means, always right.
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The 2018 Scottish salmon catch totals were published last week by Marine Scotland. As predicted in these pages, it was by some margin the worst year since records began in 1952.
The total rod catch was 37,196 salmon, of which 93%, also a record, were released. The big rivers, as ever, caught the bulk, with Dee 3,320, Spey 3,178, Tay 4,483 and Tweed 5,644 making up their combined total of 16,625, or 45% of the total. The smaller rivers, with some exceptions (eg the Helmsdale), suffered disproportionately from the drought and heat, being more dependent than their larger cousins on rain and spates. Some of them could not fish for two or three months. The effect of this on catches is unquantifiable, but will be considerable and certainly not fully compensated by the late surge in catches when the rains came in September.
Spring continued its post 1950s/1960s decline. Catches are now at their lowest level historically, in stark contradiction of those predicting a spring run resurgence. There is absolutely no sign of that.
It is certainly not a point made by Marine Scotland, but if you can find any benefit in catches to those rivers who stock, as opposed to those who do not, you are a very fine analyst. In short, the catch declines are very consistent, regardless of whether a river stocks or not.
In summary, rod catches continue to be in decline, as they have been since 2013, characterised by consistent but low spring, and very markedly lower summer and autumn, catches. There is little sign of either (a) any recovery yet, or (b) whether any such recovery will be in the spring, summer or autumn, or of salmon or grilse.
We are in the salmon numbers doldrums, and can only hope that 2019 begins to show some signal of recovery, in whatever direction.
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Our old friend Chris Packham has been at it again, this time in the name of his new organisation Wild Justice.
You cannot now legally protect your little birds in England from the crows and jackdaws that habitually trash small birds’ nests and drop their eggs on any suitable hard surface. It is a funny way to protect birds by supporting the predators that kill them just as the breeding season gets into full swing. But that is exactly what Mr Packham and his Wild Justice have done, no matter how much they protest “it wasn’t me Gov.”
Perhaps the most telling lines in the Wild Justice website are these: “We decided not to set up a charity because that would limit some activities, eg campaigning against Government policies, that we want to carry out” In other words, they knew that they would not get charitable status because it is not an environmental organisation, despite how it describes its “objects”, but a blatantly political one. The Charity Commissioners are not stupid, and they would see Mr Packham coming from several miles away. As the BBC have failed to do for some time now as he has become more obviously political.
There will be a middle/sensible/reasonable way of getting through this “control of predation” debate, but not while politically motivated extremists such as he are contaminating it. How many viewers turn off any BBC nature programme as soon as it is clear that Chris Packham is one of the presenters? Never has the “remote” been a more welcome and useful weapon in a TV watcher’s armoury. We can silence him whenever we want, and there is nothing that either he or Wild Justice can ever do about it.
Maybe the BBC does not mind annoying viewers, but until it decides to present more balanced nature programmes, where the adverse effects of excessive natural predation are discussed and tackled in a reasoned and open way, giving full recognition to the demise of all “at risk” prey species when predation is left unchecked, many will never return to any BBC nature programme.
All the while I cannot help thinking that Mr Packham will be finding the current furore rather funny, aggravating folk like you and me is what floats his boat, and we could be playing right into his hands. He probably cares not one jot that 120,000+ people want the BBC to sack him.
Now, where’s that “remote”?
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