news/editorial

5 June 2022 News/Editorial

It would have been fitting to bring you news from our Lees fishing books of exactly 70 years ago, but sadly we have a gap between March 1950 and April 1958 with no surviving detailed records.

No matter, the catch score for June 1952 was zero, as were most Junes in those days. Of course, you cry, the main fishing months in the 1950s were February to April and by June they had given up, nobody bothered as the spring run was over down this end, and 30 plus nets were operating full time between Coldstream and Berwick. Times change.

I will try to make the various snippets that follow not too downbeat, but there has been a veritable blizzard of fishy news of late, none of it making very happy reading for lovers of salmo salar.

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June has provided every sort of result in past years. 2021 was the worst in recent times at 342 salmon, whereas 2020 at 1,143 was the opposite, the best since the mid 1970s.

Interestingly, to placate those of gloomy disposition, the worst June was 2010 with a catch of just 308 for the month, a very minor contributor to that year’s extraordinary total catch of 23,219.

The difference now, of course, is that Tweed’s autumn run is not what it was.

Never mind, and despite a poor start to June in 2022, with catch totals hovering just the right side of 10 each day on the whole river last week, there is all to play for if only we can get some water. 2018 was one of the driest summers on record, 2021 wasn’t much better, and now here in early June 2022 we have already had to endure some 10 weeks without any meaningful water.

With no immediate sign of rain, there is hope, forecasters say, of something considerably windier, warmer and damper, even wet, towards the end of next week.

But will it happen, and even if it does, will it be sufficient?

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The newspapers were full of it, the 2021 Scotland-wide salmon catch was the worst since records began in 1952, and had records been kept before that, it would have broken those as well.

35,693 salmon were caught by the rods, 25% below the existing (very low) 5 year average. It is also just 31% (a 69% drop) of the 2010 total. Excuses are made for covid fishing restrictions in Spring 2021, but they would have made a very marginal difference, as it was the lowest scoring time of the year that was affected, and the restrictions were nothing like what they were in 2020.

Only 1,619 salmon were killed (4.5%), although given the continuing declines, quite why any rods are killing anything is a mystery. Despite the compelling figures, it is almost as if some anglers do not think there is a problem.

The only semi commercial net in Scotland (well England, but classed as Scotland for fisheries purposes) is at Gardo in Berwick, catching and killing 574 salmon, itself a worryingly low figure given that in a largely floodless year, conditions could not have been better for netting in the harbour.

Rod catches countrywide were not helped by the almost universal lack of water, but even so, it takes a supreme optimist to see anything encouraging in these numbers.

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Fisheries Management Scotland (FMS), the body representing all salmon rivers in Scotland, including the Tweed, has issued its report on the 2021 season, well worth a read here https://fms.scot/wp-content/uploads/2022/220518-2022AnnualReview-WebVersion.pdf.

The rod catches on the four big east coast rivers were:

Tweed 5,862

Spey 5,318

Tay 4,505

Dee 2,871

Those of a competitive nature on Tweedside will be relieved to see their river top of the tree.

Closer examination is not quite so kind.

The Spey season ends on 30th September, and there is no doubt that, had they continued into October, they would have caught many more. By the same token, had the Tweed finished on 30th September, its catch would have been 3,863, some 1,455 fewer than the Spey to the same date.

In the old days, pre 2014, the Tweed could legitimately say that what they caught in October and November were largely fresh fish (I have many pictures to prove it!) that the Spey did not have.

Sadly that is no longer the case.

Enough said.

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My kind correspondent sent a clip of a study being done on the Fraser River in the States, where their various types of Pacific salmon, Coho, Chinook etc are in decline; sounds familiar?

They have identified that most losses occur in the first month after smolts arrive into the bay, or sea, having commuted down the river. The suspected culprits are the seals, or “harbor seals” as they call them, and their concern is that these seals are eating 100s of 1,000s (yes, that many) of their smolts at their most vulnerable times, soon after entering salt water.

They have developed a method of tracking exactly what these seals eat by placing a mini camera on their heads, seems unlikely but true! Initial studies with a seal in a tank with some smolts, to prove the cameras work, show a chilling insight into how easy the smolts are to eat for a hungry seal, and of course they eat loads of them because they are not, individually, a very big meal.

I had always thought that our seals off the Northumbrian and Scottish east coasts were mainly a threat to returning adults. Now I have an indelible vision in my mind of these fat predators, in amongst shoals of our smolts after they get past Berwick harbour, or even in the harbour, being hoovered up in their 1,000s.

Can we do anything about it? I have no doubt that the Americans will try eg some sort of anti seal protective boom in the estuary off the Fraser River, just while the smolts are running. Would it work here, or is there anything else we can do? Do we know what the predation of seals on smolts is in the mouth of the Tweed, maybe not as bad as in the Fraser River, or maybe just as bad, who knows?

So many unanswered questions, in the seemingly never ending search for answers to our missing salmon.