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Sep 06, 2010
News
Another season is just around the corner and I hope it turns out a lot better than the one just past. It possibly was the poorest season I can recall for some considerable number of years.
From the Beauly to the Tweed there appeared to be a distinct shortage of fish and most rivers reported a number of very small grilse, not as bad as previous years, but I did see several fish around the 2lb mark on one outing on the Dee some with a red sore area around the anal area.
Sure there were a few 'red letter' days for some, but on the whole the general concensus was that there was a distinct lack of Spring and Summer fish this year - yes the Upper Dee early on fished well but the Middle and Lower beats suffered. On speaking to some of the Tay ghillies ,they believed that their returns were down by a good 40% for the season and if it wasn't for a late run of fish on the Tweed here too, it would have turned out to be catastrophic.
I have been pondering over the reasons why we are being faced with smaller runs of fish, smaller fish and fish damaged around the anal area on some of these fish.
Firstly, let me make it clear that I am not a scientist and the following is a summary of my thoughts and that of a few fellow anglers gleened over the past few years. Okay, lets look at the smaller runs of Salmon coming into our river systems. I believe that the smaller runs are due to predation both in the rivers themselves and also at sea.
In the rivers this predation is carried out by sawbilled ducks like the Goosander, Merganser and of course the Cormorant . A report ,several years ago, intimated that their study showed that an adult sawbill will eat almost 4lbs of fish per day!! From this just calculate the number of fry and parr it takes to make up that 4lbs - a not inconsiderable number I can assure you. Then, in some river systems you have the added predation of escapee Rainbow Trout ( the River Awe for example), there these Triploid fish gobble up more of the immature fish, as at the end of the day they are simply eating machines. Finally, there is the constant predation by estuarine seals, and it has to be acknowledged that unless the powers that be consider a humane cull of both the Seals and predatory birds - sooner rather than later, the future stocks of the Scottish Salmon will disappear forever .
Finally, let's consider fish size and the damaged fish we saw last season. We have to face facts that global warming has and is taking place, look at the ice melt in the Artic mass. This melt not only increases the temperature, it also reduces the salinity of the waters around these shores. This could - (this is only a theory of mine) force the krill and other crustacians further away in search of colder and saltier water thereby making the Salmons journey much longer, forcing the fish to use some of their fat reserves to travel back to their respective river systems. Add to this the devastation of the Sand Eel population by the Danes - they use them by extracting their oil for use in their power stations., then you can begin to see what possibly has/is happening to our stocks at sea.
Just a word about the red anal area, I believe this is possibly part of the foregoing problem, namely, a shortage of food. The fish could possibly have tried a different type of food which doesnt agree with their digestive system. It's only a thought as is the rest of this offering, but in the absence of any other data it makes a stab at giving something to ponder over.
British Columbia Trip
I have just returned from yet another trip to Canada - British Columbia to be precise, fishing on the Fraser and Harrison system, with eleven other Scots. What a time we had, fantastic doesn't even cover the holiday we had.
The trip started off by leaving Glasgow Airport and flying to Vancouver via Skippol in Amsterdam. The whole flight took approx 12 hours, but when we arrived at Vancouver Airport we were met by a stretch limosine and approx., 90 minutes later we were at the Best Western Rainbow Hotel which was to be our home for the next 10 days.
The first morning at about 08:30am we met up with Sacha, Ryan & Stevie who were to be our guides for the duration of the trip. Licences sorted out we drove to Island 22 , which is about 15 minutes from the Hotel in Chilliwak. There we boarded one of the three jet boats (4 per boat) and sped up river at a rate of knots, (I was told at one point we were doing 60 miles per hour in 6 inches of water!!!) and were soon dropped off on one of the numerous gravel bars on the Harrison River.
Derek was first to get a fish, basically because he have got his rod made up and ready when we were speeding up the river! He was known as 'The Desparado' for his cheek!! Anyway, soon we all had rods bending into Chum, Sockeye and the 'Big Ones' - Chinook. We had deliberately went a week later this year to miss the Pink Salmon which come every odd year 2007, 2009 etc., and it was estimated that this year there was something like 22 million in the system! The problem with Pinks is that you cannot get through them with the fly to get to the other larger and stronger species so it was our plan to miss the Pinks and concentrate on the others. This we did with great enthusiasm, catching Chinook ( Kings ) up to 50lbs which was my personal best and Chum over 18lbs all on the fly. Indeed one person I should mention is Frank Donelly, who is a dedicated trout angler caught and landed a King Salmon of approxiamately 45lbs on a Single Handed # 8 rod, which he fought from the bank, ignoring the boat, (which is the usual method) a phenominal feat to say the least!
Every day brought more and more of the same, fresh fish after fresh fish. The guides changed on our boat and we had - in my view one of the finest guides I have ever had the pleasure of fishing with. An out and out angler, knowledgeable about the system we were fishing - to the extent he took us to the Stave, a small tributary of the Fraser where we caught fantastic numbers of excellent Coho, Sockeye and Chum. Another day he pulled the boat up the Chahaillis river by hand like Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, just to get us onto more Coho and Sockeye.
When - not if I go back ,I,ll certainly ask to be guided by him or my friend Sacha a strong knowledgeable guide with a great sense of humour and a wonderful guy. They're all great, no matter who you get to guide you ,whether it be the man himself - Sacha or Chris Ciesla or Curtis, Stevie or Ryan, you will have the time of your fishing life.
All too soon the trip was over, the limosine picked us up at the hotel and we said our farewells to all the friends we had made who had helped m ake this a wonderful and memorable trip. I will be going back maybe next year, we'll see, but I am definately going back.
If you want details of this holiday, contact me and I will put you in touch.
