news/editorial

6 April 2014 News/Editorial

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” said Alexander Pope in his Essay on Criticism.

Given my track record on the respective merits of fly fishing (lots) and spinning (remarkably few), you could argue, as no doubt Pope would, that it would be wise to leave what is to follow well alone.

But if this column has demonstrated anything over the past 18 months, hopefully it is that it has not been dull, has never shied away from difficult issues which we fishermen feel strongly about, deliberately controversial sometimes to engender debate.

Deep hooking and catch and release are the subjects for this week.

The concern is that there is a trend which is not going to look good at the end of this spring, and maybe this trend began last year.

So let’s look at some figures.

Please concentrate, the detail is important.

Our Lees February and March spring salmon catch here for the 5 years 2009-2013 has been 134 spring salmon in total, of which 72 were caught by fly, 62 by spinner.

Those deep hooked (which could not be returned alive) were 9 in number over those 5 years. Of those 4 were caught on a fly, 5 on a spinner.

The overall attrition rate was therefore 7%, a mixture of 5.5% for fly (1 in 18) and 8% for spinner (1 in 13).

Being cold water in February and March, all these were caught either on sunk fly or downstream spinner.

For the river as a whole, the spring salmon attrition rate has been at worst 5% (last year 2013) and at best around 3%.

To sum up, both looking at our figures here and at the river as a whole in the past 5 years, around 1 in 20 (5%) is the ballpark figure of spring salmon deep hooked, and not being able to be returned alive to the water, by all (and any) methods.

These are facts, neither supposition nor anecdotal opinion.

What none of these figures shows is the number of deep hooked fish, released back into the water where the nylon is cut and the hook left in the salmon’s mouth, the logic being that leaving it there will give the fish a better chance of survival than the resulting trauma, especially additional bleeding from the main artery at the back of the throat, by trying to extract it

Now there are those who say that the sunk fly is an especially bad deep hooker; more of this later, but there is no evidence for that in the figures above.

All methods are, of course, prone to deep hooking; anecdotal you will say, but I hardly used a sunk fly last autumn as the river was so low and warm, yet I lost almost all my stock of size 8 Cascades (using a floater or sink tip) in fish’s mouths by cutting the nylon to give them a chance of survival and spawning.

So, and here’s the controversy, why is it that so many have been deep hooked this year?

We have caught 7 here this year in February and March; of those 1 was so bad it could not be returned, but 3 more have been returned with the hook still deep in their gills, 2 of those bleeding slightly which may or may not survive. So that is 4 out of 7 deep hooked, all on a fly. 7 is not a representative sample, but even so at over 50% deep hooked it is an oddly, and worryingly, high figure given our figures (7% killed) for the past five years for February and March.

There are similar stories from other beats; the word is that something similar has happened on both the Junction and Birgham Dub.

Whereas (and I am indebted to both beats for helping me out here with precise figures) Sprouston have caught 17 with only 1 (caught on fly) to the end of March which could not be returned (pretty much normal and in line with the norm), Upper Floors have caught 57 (almost all, if not all, on fly) of which 7 could not be returned and a further 8 were returned with the hook still in and the nylon cut; this is a kill rate of over 12% and an overall deep hooked (killed and nylon cut but released) rate of 26%.

Of course, there are those who never liked my stance on spinning who are blaming it on anglers using fly more. But whether you do or do not accept that sunk fly is no more prone to deep hooking than downstream spinning, the very high incidence so far this year is distinctly puzzling and worrying…….because it is so extraordinarily high.

It also raises some moral questions, as catch and release always has, because it would seem possible that we are releasing more salmon with hooks still in their mouths than we are killing. It will vary depending on the damage already done, but what happens to those deep hooked and released fish over the next 6 months until they spawn?

Does the hook over time come out much as a splinter eventually does for us? Does the hook rust away in the mouth and eventually fall out/become harmless? Does the bleeding ever stop if the hook is in the main artery in the back of the throat, when you can see the blood pumping out with every beat of its heart?

We release them, if we can, if the fish is not already dead, with the hook, both because it is better than the alternative, and we need to save as many springers as we can.

It will presumably depend, each situation being slightly different, on not just where the hook is in the mouth, but on other physiological factors, for instance on the strength left in the fish after playing it, is it a fresh sea licer or a less robust one which has been in the river some time already and therefore weaker?

So where do I, where do you, stand on all this, given the apparent high incidence over the last 2 months?

Unusually, I honestly don’t know.

So no conclusions this week; if it goes on like this the numbers not able to be returned this spring will be much higher than the 5% in 2013, itself higher than previous years, and what it will not show, unless the RTC asks the question as part of the end of spring form for each beat to fill in, is how many more have been released with the hook still in the mouth.

By coincidence I am in receipt of the ASFB (Association of Salmon Fishery Boards) 2014 annual review. There are 2 excellent articles on catch and release therein, one of which by Lorraine Hawkins from the Dee gives me some solace, despite what I have said above.

On the Dee and the Eden, substantial numbers (on the Eden over 200) of returned salmon were radio tagged and traced to the spawning beds; 96% and 98% respectively survived to spawn. That gives me some comfort, as does the low Dee kill rate (they are 100% catch and release all year) because almost all their fish are caught on the fly, both sunk early in the year and floating later.

So, maybe I am fussing about nothing, is what appears to have happened here over the last 2 months all coincidence and an unlucky passing phase?

I hope so.

Finally, I am indebted to Professor Jake Harvey who responded most generously to my cheap jibes last week at the expense of the new stone sculpture in Kelso Square, for he is the sculptor. By way of eating some humble pie, I give below what he sent me which gives the full explanation I was lacking. Keen and expert angler, it would seem you will be able to find him not so much on the river but finishing the many inscriptions on his Kelsae stane over the next few weeks. I wish him luck and that when all is completed it meets with the admiration and approbation of Kelso’s residents, and of self confessed philistinic visitors like me.

-------oOo-------

Professor Jake Harvey DA RSA (Sculptor)

KELSAE

You may or may not be aware that I’ve been commissioned to make a public artwork for Kelso Square to be called Kelsae. The initial phase of this work has been completed and the block of basalt stone I’ve been working on in India is now installed in the square. The two month process of shaping this block can be viewed along with my diary entries on the www.visitkelso.com website. With the support of Scottish Natural Heritage new seating/planters are also to be installed in the square along with the leveling out of existing cobbles and new flat-topped Caithness setts to create an improved walking surface. The work is scheduled to be completed by the end of June 2014.

The concept underpinning my sculpture is driven by the visual and material aesthetic of Kelso square. Kelso’s market town status is important. Economic prosperity and historical development has flourished through the input and involvement of the peripheral towns, villages and farm places that encompass it. I’ve chosen to use stone the material of our planet because of its durability and longevity. In the Kelso context, I’m also interested in how the mass, form and material relates to the architecture and cobbles of Kelso square. The cobbles have been shaped and formed by generations of footfall, animal and vehicular traffic. These stones possess traces of the mason who made them and those who have passed over them. They are therefore a record of time and are a history of place. Simultaneously, I think of Kelsae as a fragment of the surrounding landscape and plan to inscribe place names encircling the form to make it like a three-dimensional mappa mundi of the area. Place names are fascinating. They make us aware of aspects of the geology of our landscape about landscape use, important historical figures and events, and evolution over time.

In choosing to hone the top of Kelsae I’m referencing the cobbled footprint below, but also drawing on our innate sensibility for touch. Stone invites our touch. We all know the pleasure of picking up a pebble and feeling that wonderful shape in the cup of the hand. I would hope that rubbing the hand on this stone might also be evocative of stroking a prized animal, or visually satisfying in the way we appreciate a newly prepared piece of ground or field of crops. I’m aiming to make something like the sculptural equivalent of a Haiku poem - a condensed, deceptively simple object that possesses several layers of meaning and association for the imaginative and receptive viewer to consider.

During the next few months I’ll be working in Kelso Square inscribing place names on the flanks of the stone. Rather than choosing a stereotypical font or carving methodology I’d like to vary the style of text and way of carving it to create a sense of space and layering and to create an animated and interestingly drawn, rhythmical surface. With this in mind, I’m inviting around 200 local communities in and around Kelso to contribute to the development of Kelsae by asking them to nominate someone from where they stay to handwrite their place name on a particular place on the stone. I’ll select the scale of the name, whether it’s carved in upper or lower case, where it is to be located, and then carve each name into the flank of the stone. Over a period of time, the stone will become a symbolic representation of the communities who have helped make Kelso the town it is today. It will also have the moniker of a particular individual recorded at a point in time. I anticipate that the future generations of collaborating individuals will derive much pride from this involvement by their forebears.

I would be most grateful if you would agree to collaborate with me on this project and appoint someone to write the name of your town, village or farm place on the attached form. Then, return this to me at Maxton Cross, Maxton, Melrose, TD6 0RL or e-mail to jakeharvey.sculptor@yahoo.com Please append a contact phone number or e-mail (or both) to enable me to invite whoever the scriber is to Kelso to write directly onto the stone and to witness the name being incised.