6 October 2019 News/Editorial
Although the scores last week were quite good at 389 salmon and 62 sea trout, they would have been better if the rains had not, yet again, upset things. This brings the cumulative totals to 5th October to 4,812 salmon and 1,754 sea trout, within 90% accuracy.
Reports are of some silver fish, mainly grilse but not all, a very distinct change from the last 5 years when almost nothing fresh came in after the end of August. There is a welcome change of mood, with much more in the way of smiling boatmen and anglers on the riverbank.
Fishpal’s global network shows that Morphie on the North Esk caught 20 last Monday, and Park on the Dee caught 14 last Thursday. As both are well down their respective rivers, you would think that their successes are at least partly because of fresh fish moving in. If so, this gives us hope and confidence that this autumn really is a bit different.
As for next week, another even more disturbed week weatherwise is the prognosis, with a proper flood in progress now (Sunday), rather than the modest rises we have had of late. Fish are already well spread out, with good catches, for the first time for some years, as far up as Traquair and beyond; next week’s water will allow our salmon to go wherever they want in accessing the whole Tweed system.
Good for fish, and for anglers higher up the river, above Galashiels. They deserve it after several depressingly poor autumns of late. Not so good for those lower down, in the short term at least, and will there be any fish left to catch, if and when it all calms down?
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To my old friend and RTC colleague Jennifer Lovett’s funeral in Carham Church last Friday. She had a very bad last few years, being cared for at home as the degenerative disease which laid her low took hold.
Along with the Duke of Roxburghe, she was a long serving and incredibly loyal and diligent member of the Tweed community, especially in her role as Treasurer of both the River Tweed Commission and the Tweed Foundation for almost 30 years.
She was never high profile, always preferring to do her work behind the scenes, as a result totally unrewarded and largely unrecognised. I have much to thank her for, in her unwavering support over the years in all matters RTC, and also for being the straightest and easiest neighbouring/ adjoining (at Wark) proprietor to deal with.
To my shame, I don’t think I ever said this to her face, but if I hope she knew it. It was a lovely service at Carham, and her old friend and colleague Terence Pardoe gave an excellent eulogy.
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For those who are fed up with the BBC’s “The One Show” and prefer an alternative occupation this Monday 7th October at 7pm (tomorrow) , why not come along to Coldstream Parish Church Hall (just off but pretty much in the centre of Coldstream’s High Street) to hear yours truly giving it large on “The River Tweed, its fish and fisheries over 50 years” ? This is thanks to The Coldstream Social and Literary Society who are having an Open Evening, all are welcome.
Do come along, to heckle if nothing else.
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Most have been assuming that there is a shift going on, long term no doubt, but a shift nonetheless, from the later running salmon of yore, to springers and summer fish, which come in earlier, before September. Not only is there no evidence of any increase in earlier running fish if you look at the Tweed catches of the last 5 years compared to the 5 years before that, if anything there has been a small decline in numbers, but are we now seeing something of a resurgence in both grilse and salmon coming in later, here in 2019?
Of course, it could be just a flash in the pan and may fizzle out at any time, but if we have learnt anything, it is that we have no idea what is going to happen next. Just as nobody saw the autumn crash of 2014 coming, so nobody has the first clue what is going on in the sea, and what will emerge from the sea into our rivers, both now and in the future.
So if anyone starts giving you some soap-boxy stuff about their thoughts on salmon runs, tell them “stop right there” because we are done with all those theories, and, remarkably, they have one thing in common.
They are all wrong.
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Talk of Carham Church reminds me of my grandfather Sir Thomas Straker-Smith. I am indebted to him for many things, an immaculately correct and charming man as I recall, but mostly when discussing with friends what our grandfathers were, and did in their lives, for allowing me to be able to produce the killer line “One of mine played rugby for the All Blacks”.
Aged 70, he decided that his life was over and gave up doing everything and anything, and had his grave dug in Carham churchyard, in a lovely position overlooking the Tweed in general, and the Kirkend Pool in particular. Many years later when he finally managed to die, by then in his 80s, the undertakers revisited the dug grave, only to find it full of spent 16 bore cartridges.
His son Billy had been happily using the dug grave as a hide from which to intercept pigeons as they flighted, of an evening, from feeding on the stubbles in England, back north over Carham Church, to roost in the warmth of those Scottish woods.
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