Endangered Species Via Ineffective Overwatch
The Atlantic Salmon Is Now An Endangered Species Via Ineffective Overwatch.
You can sugar coat it all you wish but until the basic common sense approaches are applied to the management of Atlantic salmon we are always going to struggle for consistent salmon stocks between the naturalty occurring high & low stock cycles.
How Would A Golfer View Salmon Fishing
The sport of golf in Scotland is huge with many famous courses and even though I used to own a set of clubs I spent far too much time looking for the ball and at least with salmon fishing the fly (or lure) is tied on! When a golfer plays 18 holes how many birdies or holes-in-one do they score? I'd think not many unless they're real professionals with high skill levels. To compare golf to salmon fishing I think that scoring a birdie is the same as catching a salmon these days and a 25+ pounder the same as a hole-in-one. Many of us were used to seeing more salmon in the rivers decades ago so we're really a bit spoiled but even now there are times when a blind dog in a snow storm could catch a salmon although these 'timings' are nowhere near as frequent. It's a decades old certainty that salmon stock management officials will do next to nothing significant as far as repopulating the Scottish river salmon stocks to somewhere nearer their former glory so I'd suggest anglers re-align their expectation levels, improve their 'sub surface' tactical skills and celebrate even more when that encounter with Neptune's finest does occur. Remember that with any other commodity like gold, bitcoin or even good old 'common sense' a scarcity always increases the value!
Zero Oceanic Salmon Migration Route Security Too!
Despite the clear, proven & blatently obvious in-river predation imbalances imagine what would happen if the red deer populations of Scotland 'trotted off' annually to the Faroe Isles & Greenland and what sort of returns would occur thereafter! Do I need to say much more or are we really so naive to believe that each swimming £100 salmon note hasn't been intentionally targetted (forget by-catch which is obviously an issue too) in their migration routes and especially after that information was 'scientifically reaseached' and put out there over 2 decades ago! Does this iconic indicator species and the fantastic added value they bring to Scotland's economy and other Northern Hemisphere nations not deserve a little bit of satellite survaillance assistance and a 365 day fishery patrol vessel migration route policing presence or are we to continually ignore foreign & domestic commercial enterprise who must be convinced we are all asleep!
Salmon Angler Skill Levels & Water Coverage Consistency
A solid deep down feeling of confidence is always present in a 'seasoned expert' salmon angler or ghillie and even when it looks like there are few fish about. I'm fortunate to know a handful of these 'sub surface technicians' but these guys truly know their game and often put fish on the scoresheet against the odds. The majority of salmon fishers (and good fishers too) often lack a dimension or two in their approach & faith levels and are never dependable for consistent catches as in all too many cases their heads go down too quickly when they make the assumption there's no fish about. The beat ghillie(s) should be leading the way by proving there are fish in the pools when there's no rods booked on their beats. When I was a boatman on the Tay I was out methodically searching on a daily basis with or without fishers being present but many don't bother at all these days from what I've seen in recent decades. If you're going to stick to a dominant rod pressure salmon catch stats measuring tool well surely the fishing effort should be consistent & measured too or at least explained clearly to catch stats graph onlookers! A salmon beat that hasn't been fished should never be overlooked either as rested salmon pools are always the best ones to fish even though when I was a youngster catching a salmon was always regarded as a bonus and not a condition of let!
Rod Pressure Stock Positions & Statistics
Blatantly obvious predation imbalances aside for a moment, my brain gets tied in a big knot everytime I think about the logic of having rod pressure as your salmon stock indicator. Recently I noticed a post from a ghillie who highlighted statistics showing this year's Spring catches being down on Tay even though some perfect Spring fish have been recently caught. I also know the same ghillie will have very lightly fished his own beat (if at all). What is it with human nature making it easier for us to point the finger at graphs to justify zero or minimal effort/results. You only learn in salmon fishing by blanking on the riverbank as that's the only thing that will force open your tactical mind! Celebrate the blanks as all they mean is that you're 1 day closer to the excitement of a salmon capture. If you try hard for a salmon and it still doesn't appear then even better and welcome to adulthood as that is the best leveller of all. My late mentor on the Tay in the 70's (even then) used to refer to the salmon fishing as being 'soul destroying' from time to time! Chin up and keep going would be my only thoughts and take satisfaction from your persistent & thorough water coverage until the next magical salmon tug moment occurs.
The Massive River Tay Brown Trout Populations
I recently took a boat out for some salmon harling tactics on the upper middle River Tay and was fishing with my favourite 4 inch pearly pink Tomic 'Classic' salmon lures. On the first day in the boat I caught 5 brown trout between 1lb & 3lbs with these 4 inch salmon harling lures. Over the following 4 days this trout 'by-catch' went up to 15 fish in total that happily took these big salmon lures. When our smolts migrate down river from Loch Tay & beyond to the sea during late Spring what chance have they got if that's an indication of what's only present in just a very short 1/4 mile stretch of the upper middle Tay! If a smolt gets slightly injured by a brown trout attack and survives that juvenile salmon is 'death sentenced' as it cannot then make the transition to salt water even though fishery officials 'surgically implant' RFID chips into smolts to measure actual ocean mortality (return journey only!) which totally defies logic!
The Juvenile Salmon Predation Imbalance
Unknown to the vast majority of salmon anglers including some of the higher echelons of salmon river management the biggest predator Atlantic salmon have in the rivers is the wild brown trout. Saw billed ducks & cormorants do significant damage too but the number 1 juvenile salmon assasin is the brown trout and of all sizes and not just the ones that have grown too big for their assumed 'fly life' diet. These fish pick away daily at juvenile salmon in all stages of life (fry, parr & smolts) and cannot be seen or scared away by the blast from a shotgun! Personally I'm convinced that the big build up of salmon that annually occurs in the lower reaches of most Scottish rivers is likely due to the bulk of these returning lower river adult salmon not having had to run the full river gauntlet as smolts where 'certain death' awaits the vast majority of them!
Brown Trout Populations Require Thinning Out
Think about that for a minute then consider that no real organised brown trout 'thinning out' has been conducted on the Tay & probably most other Scottish rivers in the last 4+ decades nor could it probably be easily arranged these days (due to the bulk spools of red tape) even if this basic knowledge & the desire was there! The Tay Protection Order of 1986 that formalised the trout fishing access (& trout fishing methods allowed) in my opinion did much more harm than good from a salmon stock point of view but was certainly a huge success for the wild brown trout populations! If fishery management were forward thinking they'd obtain licences to remove some of these bigger trout (to maintain some kind of co-existence balance) and move them to secure local lochans via their existing staff and fish moving equipment and open up free wild brown trout fishing for the youngsters (accompanied by a parent or gaurdian) to encourage the youth of today into this spiritually evolved pursuit and get their minds off the 'addiction' of their instant gratification Play Stations!
Predatory Trout Are A Big Problem For Juvenile Salmon
The predatory brown trout fully understands the vulnerability of fry, parr & smolts and make no mistake about that fact. Through the night 'prolifically' for half an hour, in the margins during day time in coloured water flood conditions or sometimes just a broad daylight 'smash & grab' shallow water attack is when & how they feed. There are also many choke points on the Tay which are massively over-populated by big brown trout that absolutely decimate salmon smolts attempting to migrate down through the Upper & Middle Tay and especially immediately downstream of fast turbulant water as these big trout know the smolts will be disorientated immediately after coming through these fast white water channels. Any salmon fisher in doubt of any of this should try an upstream silvery Vision Oneten immediately downstream of any fast water channel anywhere on the middle/upper Tay over the coming smolt run weeks (see picture of Vision smolt look alike lure & Tay trout from last week).
Traditional Professional Tay Ghillie Juvenile Salmon Management
Click here for the way Salmon Predation Control used to be conducted on the Tay by the old school ghillies that knew their 'river husbandry' and how to naturally maximise their own salmon beat's outgoing annual smolt production while properly managing the wild brown trout populations too. Mysteriously enough the margins of the above ghillie's beat were abundant with huge dark shoals of fry in these days and salmon parr everywhere you looked while still maintaining a healthy wild brown trout population.