28 July 2019 News/Editorial
In what will surely prove to be the hottest of the year, last week produced 107 salmon and 75 sea trout, bringing the season’s totals to 2,060 salmon and 901 sea trout. There were three smallish 1ft-2ft dirty, peaty rises in water, which may have done little for the fishing in the short term, but will certainly have helped the fish survive the extreme heat.
The sea temperature at Berwick was 59F last week. The Tweed’s river water temperature reached nearly 70F in the evenings. If you were a coldwater loving salmon with the air temperature at 85F, and you were thinking of moving into river water at nearly 70F, but you were swimming happily around in 59F in the sea, where would you stay? Quite possibly in the sea, until the river cooled down?
With the most recent water from Saturday’s rain, things should be well set up for next week. All we need now is more fish.
Next week will be cooler than last, and never very settled, or at least not until much later in the week.
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Those who predict an increase in salmon numbers coming in earlier, spring and summer, rather than autumn, together with a collapse of the grilse run, have, after 5 years since the autumn decline of 2014, not yet proved to be correct.
There were more grilse in 2018, and the signs are that there are at least some grilse in 2019. There is also no strong sign of any extra 2SW salmon in the period February to July. Proponents of the “grilse collapse, more and earlier running salmon theory” quite rightly point out that transition takes time, maybe ten years or more, if past history is the judge.
In the meantime we wait in limbo between what was the norm, pre 2014, and what might be post 2024 (?). We are on the fence, some say, and it is proving pretty uncomfortable, without any very clear and consistent sign yet as to what the future timing and strength of Tweed’s salmon and grilse runs will be.
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By way of nothing in particular, certainly not fishing, the bottom right corner of the Times letters page is a faithful friend in cheering me up from morning glooms.
With apologies to those who have already seen it, a medic wrote in last Monday reminding us of a patient suffering an identity crisis who consults his doctor. “Doctor, I think I am turning into a dog.” His doctor replies “I’d better examine you, go and lie down on the couch.” The man replies ”I’m not allowed on the couch.”
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