news/editorial

8 April 2018 News/Editorial

Basic maths only is required to count the catch for last week, just 7 salmon, making 197 salmon and 23 sea trout for the year to 7th April 2018.

Yet another week of watching a big, brown river flow by gets April started in the very same way that February and March conducted themselves…...see below for more (if you can face it).

As for next week, whisper it quietly, for there is a glimmer that things will improve. Most forecasts predict more cool, showery and somewhat drier conditions for the week ahead, even with some warmth by the weekend.

I imagine that you, like me, will believe it only when it happens.

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If the weather is your special subject, you will be sick to death of it this year…...those six (Friday to Wednesday inc) horrible days over the Easter weekend were the final straw, culminating in Wednesday’s bitter deluges.

How many fishing days have been lost to the weather this spring?

Up to the end of last week, there were 56 possible fishing days since 1st February 2018.

Without thinking too hard, I can recall at least 4 whole weeks (24 fishing days) lost either to ice/grue and/or flooding, and countless other days when the river rose a bit, was a little dirty or was too big, even if clean, the wind was a bitter howling easterly making fishing almost impossible, and so on…..in short, out of 56 possible days there may have been 20 when there was a reasonable chance, but no more than that.

As a result, not one salmon has been caught below Coldstream, where low water in the spring is de rigeur for success.

The biggest losers from this are the fishermen and women who booked their spring fishing, often many weeks ago; to fish and catch little or nothing is one thing; to not even put your rod up, is quite another, and that has been the fate of far too many this spring.

This represents a straight loss for the anglers, unless they have insured against the risk of flooding.

Some say the owners should repay the money paid by the unfortunate tenants; others say that another day should be offered f.o.c either later the same year….. or next year.

Whether it floods or not, the owners have the same costs (principally boatmen’s salaries), and the level of rents for many beats is such that they make no money from letting early spring fishing anyway; the rents cover a proportion of some fixed costs, but that is all.

Replacing the lost days with others is impossible, simply because so much has been lost. If some 36 days have been lost this year so far, with (say) 4 anglers fishing per day per beat, meaning 144 rod days to be replaced per (4 rod) beat so far…..and we have only reached the first week in April!

It is all very uncomfortable….and a subject which many owners would prefer to avoid.

Some would say that if the owners are to repay/compensate for days lost, then the flipside of that is that those who fish and catch a lot should be asked to pay more.

Last year, we put our July day’s rents up from £90 in 2016, to £120 per rod per day, to some understandable grumbles. You will recall from an earlier effort on these pages that beats such as ours have to charge some £400 (inc vat) per salmon caught, just to break even.

We caught 60 salmon here last July, which at £400/fish, is £24,000. The 3 rods let here that month (made up of many different individual anglers) paid a little over £10,000 between them. I imagine their response had we sought to surcharge them another £14,000 would have been short… and not at all sweet.

The conclusion…..that unless visiting fishermen can arrange insurance, at an additional cost which is often completely lost …because there is no flood... then those who lose out in the early spring are paying for some of the fixed overheads of the beats, despite receiving no benefit, and, more surprisingly, they are (effectively) subsidising the fishing of those lucky enough to catch many more fish than the rent paid would indicate (at say £400/fish).

There have been many springs and autumns in the past when hardly any days have been lost to the weather.

Spring 2018 is an extreme example of the opposite. Nobody I know can recall anything quite like it, even the horrendous frozen spring of 1963 had more fishable days.

Good riddance to February and March, and the first week of April, 2018, and may their like never be seen again.

Or at least….. not next year.