Uncertainty is an issue for Clyde anglers

Weather plays a major part in determining our success on the river, and this year this has been more true than ever.

By anybody’s standards this has been a very cool summer, although we’ve had some extremely hot days. Rainfall is often more important than temperatures, and we have had a lot of rainy days. We have also had dry spells.

For salmon anglers the degree of uncertainty about the height of the river downstream of Stonebyres Power Station has really upset them.

The majority of Clyde anglers use fly fishing for salmon, for the King of Fish there are some who are not comfortable unless they can spin.

Of course, spinning is only allowed on United Clyde controlled water if the spinning marks are below the surface.

There isn’t a restriction on spinning downstream of Blantyre, yet many Mid-clyde salmon anglers prefer to use flies.

All of the salmon have to pass through Midclyde water on their way upstream to where they might eventually spawn.

This is most easily demonstrated by watching the fish pass and the face of the dam at Blantyreweir.

In the middle of August reports suggest that a fish was swimming through the pass every few seconds. More tried to get directly over the dam.

There were so many salmon in the river that some anglers were catching as many as three in the day, and losing even more in the process.

Losing a salmon is not the tragedy that it might have been last year, since the Scottish Government has imposed compulsory catch and release, on the grounds that the salmon population on the Clyde was in decline.

As one angler said:“the experts should be here, looking at what we are seeing – then they might not be so quick to interfere.”

Salmon being caught are estimated to weigh anything between four and 15lbs. This is because anglers are unhooking them in the net and letting them swim free as soon as they have recovered adequately.

Clean releases are best achieved if the fish are bullied to the net, using stronger line than normal, and have been caught on barbless hooks which literally fall out.

As one angler told me, the best release is when the fish gets off before they even reach the net.

All hooked fish are destined to be released anyway and I have been suggesting that they should all be recorded as having been deliberately released on the Catch Return forms that all holders of Migratory Fish Permits have been provided with.

These forms are apparently the only evidence that the Government’s advisors will accept.

There has been a marked reduction of angling efforts, due to the catch and release rule, and this is likely to be taken as proof of decline in the population of the salmon; this is bad science.

From what I have seen and heard, this year should have been one of the best since the salmon returned to the Clyde more than 30 years ago.

The lower than average water temperature has encouraged larger than normal number of salmon to come up from the sea.

So far it would appear that there has been no repeat of the major pollution incidents in Glasgow which had killed hundreds of fish before they had the chance to start their run to the spawning grounds.

The trout season got off to a magnificent start this year but the fish appeared to go off the boil, with only small trout being caught.

Low temperatures appear to have held back the hatching of many aquatic insects, and anglers resorted to the use of wet flies and nymphs to catch a trout.

This was sensible in absence of the expected surface feeding activity of the trout.

For a month the majority of the fish caught were very small grayling. This was a good sign, in that it proved that larger grayling had been breeding successfully, but it was seen as a nuisance and a disappointment by many anglers. For those who persevered, the trout recovered in August.