news/editorial

30 August 2015 News/Editorial

There are some who relish the prospect of party pooping, deliberately going against the grain by saying something which sucks the air out of a whole gathering of friends, who, up to that point, had been of one mind, not a care in the world and happily enjoying themselves in blissful ignorance of something unknown, up to then, and suddenly, when said, distinctly dampening.

I am not one of those people.

But I cannot be alone in beginning to wonder about the numbers of salmon which have so far come into the Tweed this late summer.

Unless Monday, the last day, produces something extraordinary, our August total here will be lower than last year (not something to be proud of) and less than half our 5 year average. This is the sort of thing which might apply river wide…...worse than August 2014 and half the 5 year August average.

So, ok we have not had a proper, big, bank bursting flood since January, amazingly, given a far from dry summer and the wettest July here since 2012, but conditions have been pretty good for those beats just off the tide, and their results have been good, but hardly stellar.

It may just be timing, a huge shoal may even now be lurking off the coast, (and anyone who predicts future salmon numbers is an idiot, I have done it before, proof, if proof were needed, that I am….but never again), but it might give a little note of caution that what, up to the end of July, has been an about average year in terms of numbers, has begun to show a distinctly downward trend…….and, of course, there is almost no netting this year for the first time for centuries, so that any salmon wanting to come in can do so, if they can avoid the 1,000s of seals in their way off the Northumbrian coast.

As we enter September, the forecast is for no significant rain and cool northerly winds this week, not what those flood watchers above Coldstream and Kelso are wanting, but good for the lower beats.

This is not advice to others, but until I see which way this autumn is going, and if I am lucky enough to catch anything, it will be swimming away and not finding its way into my remarkably salmon free freezer.

Now what if, in the world we might all face in 2016, I had bought that kill licence and all of those tags at some considerable expense, and with the prospect of all that wasted money if I kill nothing, would I (or you) be thinking quite like that?

I think I would, I would still kill nothing, but I certainly wouldn’t make the same mistake the following year, throwing good money down a Government drain by buying a licence and numerous tags to no purpose

We would become full 100% catch and release...or we would break the law by killing the odd salmon and not tagging, without a licence.

Now there’s a thought…….I and other like-minded law abiding (largely!) good citizens of this country would become potential criminals.

How absurd is that?

But it could happen.