news/editorial

4 August 2019 News/Editorial

The Tweed’s catches for last week were 163 salmon and 71 sea trout, making cumulative totals of 2,223 salmon and 972 sea trout for the year to 3rd August, all within 90% accuracy.

What little water we had was nothing like enough, and has already all but disappeared. Several severe weather warnings have been issued over the last 6 weeks, but none has proved to be correct for the eastern Borders. Deluges of rain have gone all around us, towns and cities have flooded, reservoir dams are in danger of collapse, bridges have fallen down and farms have been devastated, but miraculously none of this has affected us, even though these dramas have been at all points north, south, east and west.

The result has been a consistent deficit of water all summer long, nothing like last year, but bad enough and not what you want for good salmon fishing.

Another weather warning for thunderstorms and damaging deluges covers us again today (Sunday), and much more rain is forecast for the week ahead. Will any of this finally produce a proper 6ft+ flood and clean the river out?

Maybe, at last, it will, but not if the recent track record of such warnings and forecasts is any guide.

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I strongly suspect you had thought that, since the comparative autumn collapse of 2014 and following years, the spring and summer salmon fishing on the Tweed had remained the same, or slightly improved, especially in the summer months.

Or that is what we have been told is the likely direction of travel.

Regrettably, the facts, the recorded catch figures on the Tweed, support no theory, other than that the springs and summers to the end of July have become slightly worse, certainly not better, since 2014.

The 5 year average catch 2009-2013 Feb-July was 2,770. The 5 year average catch 2014-2018 Feb-July was 2,391. The estimated catch for 2019 Feb-July will be around 2,200.

Contrary to what we have all believed, the first 6 months’ catches over the last 6 years have declined by some 15%, as compared to the previous 5 years 2009-2013.

Which is a surprise.

Of course, it does not seem so bad, as indeed it is not, when you look at the 60% decline in catches August-November 2014-2018, as compared to the same months 2009=2013.

All of which only adds to the uncertainty surrounding our fishing nowadays. Those who say the Tweed is becoming a mainly spring and summer river, with more and earlier running salmon, are making such claims based on no current evidence whatever. Indeed, the catch figures for the first 6 months of the season over the last 6 years would indicate no such thing, if anything slightly the opposite. Only optimists would say that a 15% decline in catches over those 6 years is not statistically significant.

On the positive side, this wonderful river Tweed still catches way more than any other in the UK, averaging roughly 7,000 salmon over the last 5 years, of which some 2,400 are before the end of July, and 4,600 after 1st August.

Which is still a very considerable number.