news/editorial

3 October 2021 News/Editorial

Let us say that 150 salmon were caught on Thursday last week, as many as, if not more than, most full weeks up to now. The score for the week may have been around 350-400, by a distance the best week’s fishing of the year.

The water rose, the temperature dropped, latterly into the late 40s, and the fish, previously largely uncatchable, came on to take, nothing whatsoever to do with being genetically predisposed to not taking your fly. Reports of silver fish have been almost non-existent, as has become the norm, but never mind, salmon were caught and some fun was had by those lucky enough to be on the river.

The weather forecasters tell us that we are in a rut of depressions hurling themselves at us across the Atlantic. There are dark mutterings about Category 4 Hurricane Sam, not that it/he will hit us, but that it/he might exert some malign/benign influence on the general circulation. Last week’s three, or was it four, lifts of water, was unsettled enough, Thursday being the least unsettled, hence the best fishing. Next week could be very similar, but starting from a much higher base with the biggest of the rises happening, certainly below Kelso care of the Teviot, as I write, today Sunday.

Although some fish have moved, many, to judge by the catches below Kelso, have not and it will be interesting to see how that changes, if indeed it does, next week. You would have thought that, given pretty ideal swimming conditions, more will begin to leg it westwards as time pushes on. Then the long suffering beats around St Boswells and Galashiels, together with those right up to Peebles, will have a crack at them as they make for the spawning beds.

Yr. No. tells us that Eskdalemuir will have an inch or more of rain on Tuesday, good for the fish, but not for the fishing from Wednesday onwards. It may quieten down, and become much warmer again, towards the end of the week.

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If there was one message that came out, loud and clear, from the RTC quarterly meeting on 6th September, it was that everything is fine, no “crisis” in our Tweed Atlantic salmon world. Readers, who were not there, might be surprised. Even if everyone else you can think of says there is a “crisis”, the Tweed says there is no such thing. So there.

Whether the Tweed establishment is right or not is of little consequence. We have hundreds of miles of fishy habitat which needs to be looked after, much of it improvable with judicious riparian tree planting/vegetation, thereby both increasing the food supply for juveniles but also protecting the most vulnerable parts of this massive system from overheating. The Tweed Forum has recognised this and has been beavering (oops) away on just these sorts of things for some time now; it is high time the RTC and Foundation joined in. We are so much stronger, and better, together. The financial/grant/subsidy climate is right up for it, or at least it is about to be.

We are fortunate here in being the possessors of one of the salmon’s true strongholds, some 15-20% of the spawning area of the whole of Scotland. Organisations, in my experience, who think they have it “sorted”, that consider no more needs be done, inevitably decline, as night follows day.

Even if everything is, as we are told, just fine, that is no excuse for not seeking to both “improve” and “increase”, two of the RTC’s functions. Proaction, positivity and the belief we can do more to produce vital additional smolts to go to the sea, these are the things we all need to hear. Not only could they do good in fact, but it is a message that will appeal to hard pressed proprietors, ghillies and anglers in these times of depressed catches. We need something to hang onto, however convincing the mantra “everything is just fine” is, or is not.

We can argue all day about how many fish there are this year, or were last year and the year before that. What is unarguable is that catches are, on average, less than half what they were pre 2014, and that the graphs, of returning salmon and catches, are declining both here and in the rest of Scotland. These are facts.

In cricketing terms, we need to be on the front foot. Attack is often the best sort of defence.

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I received through the post yesterday the biggest, glossiest magazine you could ever imagine from Sportfish. You too will have received a copy. It has a wonderful photo of a kingfisher on the front, mid minnow catch, my favourite bird. I saw four of them together about a month ago, there could have been five, such was the incessant flitting and dashing over the water. You would be unlucky to spend a day fishing here without seeing one. All they need to prosper is a good stock of minnows and not too many hard winters.

Absurdly, the initial reaction to the glossy was one of guilt that so many of the 1,000s of goodies will go unappreciated, certainly unbought, by this “careful” Scot. Remarkably, thus far I have not broken a rod this year, a product of comparative lack of use, thanks to the drought and not being that bothered. Even those waders with a zip, a sine qua non you would say for the male of the species once past 70, do not tempt, certainly not at anything between £359 and £899. The fifteen plus year old Oceans will be being Aquasured back into leak-free use for another season at least.

I attribute any extreme piscatorial-kit parsimony both to my father (one black and yellow tube for the whole autumn unless/until it fell apart) and my old friend Martin Wills, now not with us these past 30 years (one strand of nylon, just one single hooked fly called Kate and a massively heavy split cane rod), they caught as many if not more than most. Neither would ever have been on the Sportfish mailing list. Like them, give me a rickety old rod, with half its rings bent or missing, the cheapest reel, a spool of 18lb maxima (never fluorocarbon), a 40 yard tapered floating line (with some different tips), some Cascades sizes 4 to 10. Sorted.

Which brings us to the mystery; why am I on the list? If I ever buy anything fishy it is always in “Fin and Game” or Orvis in Kelso or the “Borders Gun Room” in St Boswells. One suspects skullduggery of the foulest and basest kind.

A leak, no less.