news/editorial

7 June 2015 News/Editorial

Almost unnoticed, Tweed spring salmon fishing 2015 got better….just as it begins to end.

This is typical of springs nowadays, with a very slow start in February and numbers picking up as the months progress, with May the best month, as it looks like being this year unless June surprises us.

I have done the sums, and although we have another 3 weeks to go to 30th June, the date to which the RTC measures Tweed spring catches, I can tell you now that it is quite possible it will be better than last year when the catch was 1,737, although most probably not reaching the 5 year average of 2,249.

The most important thing is that 2015 is better than 5 years ago, 2010, when the catch was 1,445, because we want the children to exceed the number of their parents’ generation.

Salmon are now being caught, albeit not in great numbers, from beats near the tide right up to Boleside, and as long as fresh salmon keep coming in, there is no reason why this should not continue, so long as the water remains reasonable and the weather not too hot.

There would also appear to be a large number of sea trout in the river already.

So, amidst the pervading gloom of what happened in 2014, there is hope, and who knows what the rest of the year will bring?

What netting there is on Tweed will begin soon, and for those who think any netting at all is too much, let me take you back a few hundred years to the days when netting on the Tweed was a full blown industry.

For this I am indebted to Ralph Holmes, the last active major netting operator (now retired) in a long line of a distinguished Berwick family who made netting on Tweed their business for many years, and a very good one too.

Here is an extract from one of the many writings Ralph has collected, this one from almost 200 years ago:

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“HISTORY OF BERWICK. (1817)

REV. THOMAS JOHNSTONE.

Exports - Salmon.

The chief spring of the trade of Berwick is unquestionably the Salmon Fishery, which commences on the 10th day of January, and continues until the 10th day of October. Dr Fuller, in his History, says, that in 1799 the rental of the Fishing Waters in the Tweed, from

the Mouth of the River to Norham, a distance of 7 miles, was about £10,000. yearly; at present the same distance is rented from £25,000. to £30,000. On this extent of

River, 70 Boats are employed, in each of which are 6 men; and from 4 to 500 fish are sometimes drawn ashore at one draught. The Fisheries lie on both sides of the River, although those on the South side are reckoned the best, and the limits of each Water, as it is called, are distinctly marked out.

The mode of fishing is thus described by Mr Pennant :--

“ One man goes off in a small flat-bottomed boat, square at one end, and taking as large a circle as his net admits, brings it on shore at the extremity of his boundary, where others assist in landing it. To it, may be also added, that in the middle of the River is a large

stone (or Ladder) on which a man is placed, to observe what is called the Reck of the Salmon coming up.” — Previous to the year 1787, all the Salmon sent to London from

Berwick, were boiled and put into Kits; but since that time they have been sent in Boxes stratified with Ice, by which mode they are preserved fresh for a considerable time. In the course of last year 10,215 Boxes of fresh Salmon were shipped at Berwick, each Box containing 6 stone, at an average of Eleven Shillings per stone.

During the same period not less than 300,000 Salmon, Gilses, and Trouts were taken in the River Tweed, the greater proportion of which was exported to London in Ice, the yearly expense of which amounts to £900”

70 boats each employing 6 men between Berwick and Norham, catching 300,000 salmon, grilse and sea trout! Good grief!

As you would expect, even in those days, that level of predation could not be sustained, and the Tweed Commissioners were set up in 1807 as a result of so few salmon escaping into the upper river, and the Tweed Act of 1857 further regulated both the length of the fishing season and the weekend close time to allow more fish to escape.

With almost no commercial netting now, over 200 years later.........how times have changed.