The recent dry and extremely hot spell of weather is the latest negative issue to blight the beleaguered owners of world famous salmon angling beats on the River Tweed where five poor seasons in succession have already had a devastating impact.
Fishing for salmon has reached a virtual standstill this month as water levels drop and temperatures soar to unusual heights.
Angling activity on the main river and its tributaries has been estimated to be worth in excess of 20 million pounds per year to the economy of the Scottish Borders, supporting up to 500 jobs for ghillies, boatmen, and in the tourist sector.
The negative effects of the current heatwave have been outlined on the Tweedbeats website by Andrew Douglas Home who is an angling proprieter at Coldstream on the lower river.
His post on the Tweedbeats blog explains "After yet another boiling week Tweed salmon fishing has all but ceased. The river is at or even below, summer level and the afternoon water temperatures here at Coldstream are consistently in the mid 70sF".
Apparently only 27 salmon and five sea trout were caught last week bringing the seasonal total so far to 1,030 salmon and 254 sea trout.
Mr Douglas Home writes: "At a time when salmon numbers in Scotland are low anyway, it is a pretty disastrous situation for everyone connected with the salmon fishing industry; for fishermen and women for spoling their annual Scottish fishing holidays; ghillies and boatmen for having endless poor, even blank fishing weeks to endure; proprietors for now (most probably) having a fifth poor fishing year in a row; and tackle shops, hotels, restaurants, B&Bs, self catering accommodation, petrol stations...you name it...because they are financially much worse off, some in vulnerable, often remote rural communities".
He finishes by asking 'Is it a crisis? Well if not it is not far from it'.
The prime beats on Tweed can command rents of up to 4,000 pounds a week with affluent anglers willing to pay that much if guaranteed top class sport. Studies suggest that during a 'good' season 53,000 rod days are let on the river.
However, there were reports last year that a considerable number of days and weeks on stretches of the river remained unlet leaving some proprietors with no income for those 'unfished' periods. Only 6,577 salmon were caught by rod and line in 2017, even less than the 'poor' catch of 7,680 the previous year.
For decades it has been claimed the North-east Drift Net Fishery, off the Northumberland coast, has been responsible for the interception of tens of thousands of salmon heading for Scottish rivers, including the Tweed.
The coastal fishery has been gradually scaling down in recent years, and is due to be phased out altogether. Newly available figures show that in 2017 the 11 remaining drift net licence holders together with 47 so-called T & J nets took 9,157 salmon, well down on the total of 18,824 the previous year.
In one season alone - that of 1981 - this form of net fishing accounted for no fewer than 69,113 fish.
The grey seal colony on the Farne Islands off the north Northumberland coast - predators who are accused of preying on salmon stocks - are also blamed for the poor fortunes of Tweed anglers. And flocks of cormorants are said to be taking large numbers of juvenile fish from the river system.
All in all, the various issues outlined above appear to be having an extremely serious impact on a once flourishing Borders industry.
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