news/editorial

7 February 2016 News/Editorial

So here we are again, survivors of both the Christmas/New Year Festive marathon and the extraordinary storms which have raged for 3 months.

Spring 2016 salmon may be plentiful or scarce, we will only know when the rain stops and the river settles into a good fishing height over the coming months. Of the half dozen or so which have been caught last week, they were, as most predicted after such a warm and wet winter, caught within a gnat’s crotchet of Kelso. Indeed, it would be surprising if some have not gone as far as Galashiels, one imagines there being remarkably few kelts left to act as decoys to stop them.

My old friend Johnny Aitchison from Lochton, just outside Birgham, whose family have kept meticulous rainfall records for over 100 years, tells me that the November, December and January rainfall here has been 14 inches, almost 2/3rds of the annual average in these parts .

But consider the webbed feet of the Buddhist monks at Eskdalemuir, where much of lower Tweed water comes from via the Teviot; over that same 3 month period they have had 49 inches, just over 4 feet of rain! No wonder the Tweed has been in flood for all but a very few of the last 90 days.

Fishing huts have been washed away, banks degraded and nobody yet knows how their pools have changed….but change there most certainly will have been. Gravel movement, and consequent change to pool flows and depths, must have been prodigious.

And none of us really wants to think about the possible damage to the precious salmon spawning beds and egg deposition. The Tweed Foundation will find out in July and August when it does its annual fry electrofishing work in the spawning tributaries.

There have, of course, been massive winter floods before, which have had little discernible impact on fry numbers, but have we had 4 such big successive floods before in the space of 6 weeks over the vital spawning period?

As for the coming week, more wind and rain is forecast.

It will end sometime, but not yet it seems.

-----ooOoo-----

I am aware that just after the season ended in 2015, the Tweed was advised by the Scottish Environment Minister that it would be excluded from the current round of Wild Fisheries Reform…..in other words, left alone.

This is a triumph for the Tweed; we are to be left just as we are…... and we also have no kill licencing, quotas and tagging.

For those living distant from Tweed, below is an extract from the local paper, the Southern Reporter, which fully explains what happened just after last season closed.

To all those who supported our case both in writing to the Government and more generally in messages of support, and persuaded the Government to change its mind on both issues, thank you.

Thanks are also due to the civil servants and to the Government for listening.

It was the 100% unanimous support of both the local and the wider angling community which won the day for Tweed.

Here is the newspaper article of early December 2015:

“River Tweed Commissioners have looked after the river for over 200 years and have successfully fought off proposals by the Scottish Government to centralise control.

For the past two years the Scottish Government has been consulting about a new wild fisheries management system for the whole of Scotland, which would have taken away the Tweed Commissioners’ control of interests on both the English and Scottish sides of the Tweed.

Opposing the move River Tweed Commissioners argued that the River Tweed already has a self-financing system which works well and addresses the legal and administrative requirements of cross-border fisheries management. And it seems that the Government now agrees with them.

Scotland’s Environment Minister, Dr Aileen McLeod MSP has now confirmed: “The Scottish Government is clear that strong local management must be at the heart of any reformed wild fisheries management system. There are lots of examples of this taking place across Scotland already, not least on the Tweed, where the fisheries play an important role in the local economy.

“Because part of the Tweed district is in England, it is covered by different legislation from the fisheries in the rest of Scotland. This will continue to be the case, so the forthcoming Bill will apply to the rest of Scotland and any changes to the management of Tweed fisheries will be covered by separate legislation made in both the Scottish and UK parliaments.

“Many Tweed stakeholders have participated in the wild fisheries review to date, which has also included important dialogue with the River Tweed Commission itself. The Scottish Government looks forward to continuing this constructive process to make sure that the Tweed can be part of the planned modernised fisheries management system in a way that appropriately reflects its unique cross-border circumstances.”

Her statement follows a meeting she had with Nick Yonge, clerk to the River Tweed Commission, Tweed chief commissioner Douglas Dobie and a contingent of officers and councillors from Scottish Borders Council on Wednesday, December 2, to discuss the Wild Fisheries Reform Bill.

“David Parker told the Minister that SBC was very satisfied with the RTC and the fisheries management that it provided for the Tweed,” said Mr Yonge.

“The Minister agreed that RTC was a good model for fisheries management, that the Tweed was a special situation and that current management was good.”

“She also confirmed that the Tweed would not be part of draft legislation, due in February, which was being prepared for the rest of Scotland and that she was keen to make sure the other parts of Scotland were working properly first before considering any revision to the Tweed legislation, if that was required.

“It was a most cordial meeting led by the SBC who were very clear and supportive of River Tweed Commission.

Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire MSP John Lamont MSP added: “The Scottish Government’s proposals would have put at risk the international reputation of the river, which contributes £24 million to the local economy, and supports the equivalent of 500+ full-time jobs.”