31 July 2022 News/Editorial
Amid rumours galore of fish piling into the Tweed’s lower reaches, of schools/ pods (?) of dolphins playing “catch the salmon” off the coast, even porpoises tucking in, we know not the complete truth as to salmon numbers, except that the drought continues. Rain there is in the immediate forecast, but as ever nothing like enough, it seems. After next Tuesday, the dreaded Azores high pressure builds in again with no sign of any rain for some days thereafter. If ever there was a demonstration that of the two events that bedevil salmon fishing, flood and drought, drought is the worse, 2022 is providing living proof.
More frustrating still is that the rain last weekend which gave us a 6” lift, did much more for our more northern cousins. Both the Tay and the Dee have caught well over 200 in the week, with one beat, Park on the Dee, catching 22 one day and 28 the next. No news from the Spey, but it would be unsurprising if the lower beats, Rothes and below, have done equally well.
The difference between them and us? That most precious of commodities, water.
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Estimates of fish caught are becoming increasingly irrelevant as an indicator of anything, except the hugely disadvantageous conditions in the river.
These pages estimated the Tweed total at 1,800 to 2,000 to the end of June; it seems unlikely that as many as 500 were caught in July, remarkably few of those above Kelso, most from Coldstream down to the tide.
Often fishing conditions are used as an arguable, less than convincing, excuse for lack of numbers caught; not so this July, seldom can lack of water, heat, floating weed etc have produced quite such unfavourable, and persistent, circumstances for visiting anglers. It is a shame, and continues to be so.
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CEFAS has produced its salmon stocks assessment report for 2021 for all English and Welsh salmon rivers. You can read it here:
If you can't face that, the headlines are these;
1. The only salmon river in England and Wales (80 of them) not deemed to be, to some degree, “at risk” is the Tyne.
2. The total rod catch for all rivers in 2021 was 5,736 salmon and grilse; the Tweed alone, in one of its worst rod catches for the last 40+ years, caught 5,862 salmon and grilse in 2021, slightly more than all 80 rivers in England and Wales put together.
3. The Tyne rod catch, often much vaunted for the benefits of its Kielder hatchery and freshet releases, was 1,454 salmon and grilse in 2021.
4. The mighty Wye, which routinely caught some 6,000 salmon and grilse pre the 1980s, erstwhile playground for that great prolific angler, Robert Pashley, caught just 255 salmon and grilse in 2021.
All of this is truly shocking. Of course, the figures are worse than if we had had a wet, cold summer in 2021. Nonetheless, the trend is relentlessly downward and it remains hard not to conclude that the further south you go, (a) the more difficult it is for our salmon to survive and (b) that temperature is the villain. As global warming has some way to go before peaking, it is increasingly hard to be optimistic.
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Tweed anglers will be sad to hear that Reg Fairbairn has died, at the age of 94. A netsman, sometime ghillie/boatman, angler, postman and, latterly, prolific and excellent smoker of fish from the garage of his house in Birgham.
A visit there, when we all killed salmon to smoke in the 1980s, was one of storytelling from the past, of how things are not as they used to be, but all with tongue in cheek and a never ending supply of good humour.
He was a great man and had a good, long life, much liked by all those lucky enough to have known him.
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