Is 70% increase in Tweed salmon catches just a coincidence?

by DOUGLAS SHEPHERD

Reports of a sharp increase in salmon and sea trout catches by anglers on the world-famous Tweed fishing beats have coincided with the closure of drift net fisheries in North-east England which were accused of intercepting salmon heading for Scottish rivers.

After a 2018 season described as woeful and abysmal - many fishing days lay unbooked due to the lack of fish - the publication of figures for the early months of 2019 reveal a 73% rise in the number of salmon hooked so far with a 148% increase in sea trout caught.

The statistics can be found on the Tweedbeats website which supports and promotes angling on the Borders river.

According to the latest returns reported by Tweedbeats: "Tweed’s rod catch last week [ending June 15th], representing by far the best week of the season despite being just 3 or 4 proper days fishing for most, because of flooding on Thursday, was 181 salmon and 79 sea trout, making the totals for the 2019 season 1,367 salmon and 281 sea trout (all within 90% accuracy). For comparison, the totals to the same date in 2018 were 788 salmon and 113 sea trout."

The angling interests here in Scotland and further afield had campaigned for at least four decades to have the 'destructive' drift netting fisheries of Northumberland closed down.

It finally happened this year which meant the 30 or so licensed netsmen who should have been operating off the north-east coast from April to August are not around. The closure of the fishery brought to an end 150 years of activity by the drift nets.

Figures published by the Environment Agency record catches of 9,157 salmon by the drift net fishery in 2017, a sharp fall from the total of 18,824 in 2016.

At the same time the nets are said to have accounted for 35,146 sea trout in 2017 and 38,863 in the previous season. The combined value of the 2017 haul by the 30 licencees was an estimated £29,114. Statistics for 2018 - the last year of activity by the netters - are expected soon.

there was widespread jubilation across the angling world when the demise of drift netting in the north-east was finally confirmed after a number of false alarms during the last decade.

According to the River Tweed Commissioners, administrators of salmon fishing in the Scottish Borders: "Genetic work has shown that 70% of Salmon caught in the nets are of Scottish origin, demonstrating just how mixed, and damaging, the Drift Net fishery’s catch was – and how many fish it prevented from reaching their home rivers.”

"With Tweed seeing much depleted Salmon stocks at present – as are many other rivers – it is hoped that the closure of the nets off our coast will help provide more fish with a chance to return to the river to spawn.”

And the Commissioners added that The Environment Agency was introducing these restrictions on fishing in England in response to the international decline in migratory salmon stocks.

Salmon stock numbers were currently among the lowest on record and below sustainable levels in many rivers. 

"The byelaws will become law on the 1st January 2019 and, in addition to the closure of the Drift Nets for Salmon fishing,  will see the introduction of mandatory catch and release on ‘At Risk’ and ‘Recovering Rivers’ rivers from next June and renewal of the 1998 Spring Salmon Byelaws to protect early running Salmon", explained the Commissioners' spokesperson.

There was a very different reaction from the netsmen who relied on salmon and sea trout for a significant percentage of their income.

An article in Fishing News in August 2018 declared: ".The recreational salmon angling sector has applied pressure on the commercial salmon fishery for decades, maintaining that netsmen are one of the main reasons for reducing numbers of migratory fish – salmon and sea trout – returning to their rivers of birth to spawn.

"Netsmen say they are just a convenient scapegoat. They say their small-scale, tightly controlled and limited fishery is insignificant when viewed against the huge area of the North Sea and out into the North Atlantic, and against the loss of fish to the constantly increasing number of predatory seals that kill unknown numbers of salmon and sea trout along the coast and in river estuaries annually."

Ned Clark, chairman of NFFO North East, told Fishing News “These salmon and trout fisheries have formed the cornerstone of inshore fisheries on the northeast coast of England for generations, and the fact that they have survived for this long is a testament not only to the sustainability of these fisheries, but also to the tenacity and fortitude of the remaining fishermen in fighting to retain their rights to fish in the face of overwhelming political pressure to permanently close their fisheries."

The owners of the salmon fishing beats on Tweed will no doubt be hoping the significant improvement in catches during the opening four-and-a-half months of 2019 will be maintained throughout the rest of the season which closes at the end of November.