news/editorial

7 September 2014 News/Editorial

So what is going on, or, maybe that should be, is not going on, with our salmon and grilse?

That they are not here yet in any numbers, when normally they would be, is not in doubt. You could blame the lack of water, but the situation is similar if not worse on other east coast rivers, which have had plenty of water, but very very few grilse.

And there is no sign of substantial numbers coming into the beats just above the tide ....yet.

Let us consider the 3 possible options.

1. There has been a disaster in the North Atlantic, for some unrecognised and uncontrollable environmental reason, and there are very few grilse or salmon to come.

2. The normal grilse run is late and will arrive in the next few weeks; it is simply a matter of timing.

3. We are in the process of a major switch from predominantly grilse to a future of predominantly salmon; in the past our autumns have been mainly 75% grilse; who knows, they may be becoming 75% salmon?

Time alone will tell with 1. and 2., but the possibilities of 3. are rather intriguing.

If you blame the poor run of springers in 2014 on the even worse run of 2009, which makes logical sense, then you could also expect a not very good run of salmon (as opposed to grilse) this autumn, because the autumn of 2009 was also pretty poor by Tweed's high standards.

Most of us were pinning our hopes for autumn 2014 on the (grilse) progeny of the record 2010 autumn. If the children of the 2010 autumn were to come back as grilse, they would be coming back now.

But what if they do not?

Tweed Foundation biologist Dr Ronald Campbell tells us that there is some evidence that a switch is under way from grilse to salmon, but as yet there is nothing conclusive.

And, of course, it does not have to be a neat, sudden change...it could be a gradual process with some years still being mainly grilse..... but over a period of say 10 years, the switch is made (as it was in the 1920s).

You may recall the very curious goings on of summer/autumn 2011. On 10th August that year, one rod fishing here caught 20 salmon in a day, and I mean salmon (not grilse) because they almost all were large, and sea-liced. Our average weight shot up in 2011 despite the presence of some of those very small grilse, which so deplete the average.

But then 2012 and 2013 were more typically mainly grilse runs.

And we have to be careful here to distinguish between a switch to salmon and a switch to spring; they are not the same thing.

There is nothing whatever in the figures to suggest that the spring run is coming back; it has been stuck in a sort of "subsistence" rut for some decades now, and there is no indication of any change in that.

A switch away from autumn grilse and towards autumn salmon just may be what is happening, and what a happy prospect that would be.

Does the fisherman exist who would rather catch a 3 lb grilse than a 10 lb salmon?

All of this is speculation, sprinkled with a large element of wishful thinking.

I mention it only because it is not always the case that what seems deeply gloomy in the short term, is in fact so when you can view the broader sweep.

We will only be able to do that with the inevitable passage of time.

Until then, nature may well have had a disaster for our salmon and grilse at sea, but we do not know that yet, and whatever the rest of 2014 brings, we will not know for sure for another year or two.

Watch this space.

PS And if anyone gives credence to those mythical trawlers at sea having wiped out the entire run of Scottish salmon and grilse, rumours of which crop up every year, please do not, unless you have concrete evidence, not just rumour heard from “someone who knows”. RTC and Tweed Foundation CEO, Nick Yonge asks Marine Scotland every year and always gets the same answer back....... that is simply not true.