news/editorial

9 October 2022 News/Editorial

With so many non reporting beats,Tweed’s catch score estimation is little short of guesswork. Last week was plagued by rising, unsettled water, as predicted, from Tuesday onwards and somewhere around 500 salmon caught might not be too far from the truth.

That many salmon have moved upstream is clear, but still large numbers appeared to be stuck below Coldstream despite the many encouragements to get on with it. With more heavy rain today, and probably another consequent lift in water tomorrow, the closer we get to spawning time over the next week or two, you would expect the lower beats to begin to almost completely empty.

Quite why these later running fish are so reluctant to move, has always been a mystery, especially when you ally that to the marked reluctance of springers to stop anywhere much short of Kelso. You only have to look at the catches of beats around Kelso in the spring, as compared to those below Coldstream, to see what I mean; from July onwards the exact opposite is true, albeit aided by these annoyingly consistent summer droughts, which do anything but encourage the summer fish to move.

What was especially pleasing about the Saturday’s scores was the preponderance of catches above Galashiels, 7 at the Yair and 5 as far up as Traquair showing both what a long wait beats up there have every year for action, and that a significant number of salmon have at last moved well upstream. With Middle Ettrick in double figures, what we all assume to be springers have also moved in some numbers above the Philiphaugh cauld. Given the unsettled forecast for next week, it would be no surprise if the biggest proportion of catches continue to be from Upper Tweed and Ettrick.

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Observers of other rivers and their salmon catches will have noticed a similar trend to here, that is that since some water arrived, things have shown a sudden and dramatic upward turn. Both the Tay and the Dee seem to be on a par if not better than 2021, with Spey information hard to come by. Tweed’s figures are not comparable because of the absence in Fishpal/Tweed of Junction and Sprouston in 2022, whereas they did report in 2021. Nonetheless, there is at least a chance now that overall season catches will get somewhere close to the 5,832 figure of 2021.

Good news nowadays is in short supply, but despite a near record dry and hot summer, especially in eastern Scotland, the overall Scottish salmon catch for 2022 may not be as low as 2021. If you take into account the casualties at sea from seals and dolphins, while salmon could not get into the river, then the number of adults returning to all Scottish rivers may not have seen the decline, since last year, that everyone has been talking about.

If true, it is scant comfort to those many beats who have missed out because of the prolonged drought.

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Avian flu has struck our mute swan population, a terrible sight to see, with families being decimated in the space of a few days. When the more beautiful whoopers arrive, they too must, sadly, be at risk.

As we approach winter, so do the numbers of cormorants coming inland, and they are already much more evident than they were two or three weeks ago. The jury is still out as to exactly how much damage they do to young salmon, but that they do damage cannot be doubted, even if other things (minnows, sticklebacks, young grayling etc) may take up most of their diet before the smolts are migrating. We salmon anglers tend to think that all cormorants and goosanders eat are our young salmon and nothing else. Inconclusive evidence so far from dietary analysis is that on the Tweed especially, we should be grateful that the river is so rich in other young fish, that in the winter, before the smolts are running in the spring, cormorants may well be subsisting mainly on Tweed’s other small fish.

More work is in progress on dietary analysis. It is not a simple question, as what fish eating birds eat depends on numerous factors, time of year, location ie where they are (downriver or in the tributaries), and indeed what bird you are talking about eg cormorants, because of their size, tend to operate mainly in the main stem, whereas goosanders may do most damage in the smaller tributaries.

More on this in due course, no doubt, on the rivertweed.org website.