A difficult year for anglers

At best, this year will be remembered as a difficult one for both salmon and trout angling.

My recollection is that the summer was generally cold and wet. There was no shortage of trout, but they were reluctant to accept flies or baits, especially in the middle and upper reaches of the Clyde, where the water was usually too clear to prompt trout to accept worms or maggots.

The apparent absence of clouds of hatching mayflies meant there were very few occasions when trout were seen rising to dry flies.

There were days when some anglers were able to catch quite a few trout and often a lot more grayling, but it was well into September before any trout, in excess of 4lbs, were reported.

More fish were caught on Black Spiders and hare’s lug nymphs than on any other pattern. On more than one occasion those anglers, who were prepared to persist in their attempts to find and catch fish, were reminded about what they would normally expect to find during a visit to the Clyde.

With the trout season coming to and end, there is often an increase in the number of trout being caught, as the fish are keen to build up on their body mass in time for spawning.

They will go off the feed as a natural precaution to prevent the spawning trout from eating their own eggs.

While undergoing a huge physical transformation, the trout will feel soft to the touch, which indicates they are extremely vulnerable to bad handling.

Even more so than usual, trout must now be unhooked, while they are still being supported in a net, to prevent damage.

Taking photographs of a newly caught trout lying on the ground should not be practiced at this time of the year – it’s bad enough at the best of times. There is no credit in catching out of season trout.

Although there is still almost a month of the salmon season left, some anglers have already suggested that this will be regarded as one of the poorest since salmon became established in the Clyde.

I still have high hopes; I recall many years when salmon didn’t show up until the end of October, and they peaked in November.

This discouraged a number of anglers from buying season permits, fearing there might not be any salmon for them to catch before the season came to an end.

My reasons for optimism are that there have been a few small salmon caught in the last month and also one really fine specimen, weighing 18lbs. It was a cleanlooking male, with a well developed kype jaw, and looked as if it was fresh in from the sea – and yet it was already perfectly adapted for fighting.

This close to spawning, all salmon should be released so that an adequate number of eggs are laid, to sustain the population for the future.

In normal years, the eggs of the first salmon to run are in danger of being dug up by the fish that come after them; there is only a finite amount of gravel bed suitable for them to spawn in.

It is hoped that our understanding of the problem might improve the ability of the Clyde to become even more productive than it is now.

Grayling were caught throughout the summer. This could have been more than normal because the summer was so much cooler than we expected.technically, they are an Arctic species, which was left over as the Ice Age receded, so if our climate were to become warmer, the grayling would disappear.

Until a few years ago it was thought that the grayling would become extinct due to too many of them being killed by greedy anglers. Fortunately, the vast majority of us fish for sport, and carefully release most of what we catch. Enlightened attitudes towards size and bag limits contributed to bring this species back from the brink of extinction.

The United Clyde Angling Protective Association is no longer selling grayling permits. The reason for this stems from abuses of the Coarse Fishing element of the Winter Permit.

Annual permits will be on sale in October and will remain valid until March 2019. This gives the grayling anglers two winters of sport, with the summer season free. A passport photograph will be required.