28 February 2021 News/Editorial
Local pundits agreed, after witnessing many much bigger floods of yore, that Wednesday’s effort was about 13ft. You do wonder how those little eggs, fingerlings etc in the headwaters survive it, but it would not surprise me one jot if electrofishing results, later in the year, find remarkably little evidence of damage.
The forecast weather is settled and calm for at least a week, possibly well into March, depending on how this high pressure behaves. Even without boats, fishing should not only be much more pleasant, but could even bring rewards. “Locals only” can get here, although I see trouble brewing; the definition of “local” here last June seemed to extend to Dorset, and as complete lockdown is slowly relaxed, there will be understandable desire to stretch the new “gradually unlocking” rules to the limit.
Our policy here, the right and only viable one, is that it is not up to individual salmon beats to act as judge and jury as to who can legally get here to fish. “Complicated” does not begin to cover it, as yet again we will have not only English and Scottish rules, but Scotland will have different tiers, all of which makes living right on the Border all but impossible.
Those not living here have some Sturgeon-induced belief that the Stasi are thick on the ground on Coldstream Bridge, with Stalag type searchlights and control towers everywhere, and those nasty Alsatian type snarling, doggy things itching to take lumps out of your thigh. Nothing could be further from the truth, none of which is said as any sort of inducement to rush north from Land’s End. It is simply a statement of fact. Cross border traffic, to me, seems pretty normal, unsurprisingly when you think that the inhabitants of Wark, Cornhill, Carham, Paxton etc (all in England) use Coldstream every day for shopping, going to the chemist, the Health Centre etc. All of which makes the oft quoted notion (guess who?) of closing the border, so utterly ridiculous as to be laughable. The Borders here very much operates as one community, both Scottish and English, the Tweed as a cross territory river being the most visible and iconic embodiment of that.
‘Nuff said.
--00--
Despite the lack of any prolonged active piscatorials for the second week running, there is of course some welcome fishy news. The River Tweed Commission has published its 2020 Annual Report. It is an admirable document to be found soon, you would think, on the RTC website.
Most are only interested in one thing, the rod catch for the 2020 season. Despite missing some 2 months (24/3 to 13/5 in England, and a much worse 24/3 to 29/5 in Scotland...don’t get me started!), the score was 9,614 salmon, by some distance the best since 2013, and would have been well over 10,000 but for Covid. I still bear the scars of sitting with my grandchildren on the banks of our Learmouth Stream in April 2020 with salmon jumping everywhere, and all we could do was watch.
The trend in catches is even clearer now. We have all suspected that some sort of major switch is happening, and 2020 confirmed that, bigtime. In 2013, the last good “autumn” year, October and November catches made up 56% of the total; in 2020 it was 20% and, as we know, most of those were old summer fish, not proper autumn fish at all.
By the same token, in 2013 11% were caught in the summer months of June, July and August; in 2020 that had risen to 49%.
What is lacking is any form of reliable catch data from 2020 for the spring, because February and March were largely flooded, and April and at least half of May were unfished thanks to Covid. Indeed, of a total rod catch of over 500 to the end of May, some 2/3rds were caught on English beats in the last 2 weeks of May.
The November 2020 catch was 153 salmon; whisper it gently, the equivalent monthly catch in 2013 was over 4,500.
And finally, as one who long ago decided that killing any of our precious salmon, in a world where all salmon are struggling to survive for a myriad of different reasons, was not something I wanted to do, it is good to see that the 2020 release rate at 89% was an all time Tweed high, even if still well below our other three big river Scottish colleagues (Tay, Spey and Dee) which all achieve much closer to 100%.
Unsurprisingly, the only remaining commercial Tweed net (Gardo) had a much better year, catching and killing 738 salmon. Before your blood pressure rises too high, as the rods killed 11% of 9,614, or some 1,050 salmon, that makes the Tweed rods by far the biggest “single river” killers of wild Atlantic salmon anywhere in the UK. Again.
Because the information is not given in the Report, I cannot comment on the numbers caught in 2020 on fly and spinning respectively.
--00--
Finally, after enduring a pretty grim, dark, cold and incarcerated winter, meteorological spring begins tomorrow. With the sun shining, the wind benignly puffing and the temperature distinctly tolerable, the river will be in increasingly fine fettle as the week progresses. The ducks have paired up, our kingfishers are legion, the water is as clean as a whistle, and all is well on the river. Many of the pools will have changed after those floods, some better, some worse, and lucky fishers next week will be the first to find out if, or how?
If you can, get out there. Both Mertoun and Floors caught one yesterday. So, who knows, so might you. Bonne chance et lignes tendues.
our twitter feed