news/editorial

9 February 2020 News/Editorial

The salmon catch has risen to around about 15 for the season so far to 9th February. Sadly, “around about” might crop up a lot this year, as William Younger who performed a vital task in gathering together weekly catches from all different sources (two websites and a number of non reporting beats) over the last 2 years, cannot do the same in 2020.

We can only hope that this increases the pressure for the Tweed to have one site online into which as many beats as possible report, directly and daily. Only then will we get away from where we are now, and have been for the last 7 years, of nobody being able to see, at a glance, all the catches from every beat in one screenshot, with both weekly and “year to date” additions.

By way of comparison, for those depressed by there being so few fish caught in 2020 so far, and in pretty good fishing conditions towards the end of last week, to the same date in 2019 the score was just 7.

It is early days.

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So will this very big flood damage future prospects by affecting the spawning areas adversely, at what is a crucial time for hatching, and recently hatched, salmon eggs?

It is tempting to think that very big floods over the winter are disastrous, but of course they have always happened, so that cannot be true. The difference with 2015/16 was the sheer number and consistency of truly massive floods, one after the other, over the Christmas and New Year period.

Some years ago, I recall one huge winter flood that affected the Teviot system especially badly; we tested the Teviot nursery areas later that summer, and fry numbers were entirely normal.

Collective wisdom from weather forecasters is that things will remain unsettled for the remainder of February, with perhaps more settled conditions in March.

But, thankfully, there should be nothing quite like another Ciara.