PLEASE RELEASE ME
Why catch and release is shutting down some of Scotland’s rivers
The scene encapsulates everything in Scottish angling at the moment. The day was overcast, a stiff breeze giving respite from the season’s awful midges. I saw an elderly lady ahead suddenly raising her arms akimbo, somewhere below her a bent salmon rod. As I drove closer she shouted to a spectator in a ticking-over car, ‘Her first fish!’ She came over to me beaming, ‘Can she kill it?’
On the river-bank were three girls, the youngest holding the rod, radiantly. No killjoy, even the worst, could have said, ‘No’. Happily, the river in question, the Helmsdale, is one of 19 deemed to be adequately stocked with salmon, so in conservation category one. The management decides the release policy. Despatching the salmon was legitimate.
The features of the scene are important. These were young people. So salmon fishing is not only wizened grampuses in battered tweeds, with fading voter power. The grandmother was with her own brood, encouraging them to get the kicks she remembered long ago. The icing on the cake, she knew, would be the salmon on the table.
It explains why fishing is Scotland’s biggest participation sport. It spans the generations and you occasionally eat your catch. You stand in the mighty rivers winding through the dreamy hills. From the glaucous depths, a silver form lunges like a shooting star from dark skies and, almost frighteningly, by this thread of nylon, you are attached to it. Most wildlife experi- ence is observational; fishing is immediate and tactile.
On Scotland’s rivers in 2016, everyone harks back to the same question: what is the release policy? Can I kill one?
The century-old local fishery board system has been replaced. Government now sees fit to do the thinking for the locals. Spring salmon are all returned, whatever the local situation. Thereafter rivers are put in three categories, only the first being allowed to follow its head. In the third and largest category, on 88 rivers, all fish must go back. No salmon is ever eaten.
What dictates categorisation are rod catches, as reported by anglers. The concept is riddled with flaws.
Why would anyone go to a category three river? Salmon are, apparently, scarce. You catch them in order to release them. It’s like football with no goals. The bailiffs’ binoculars are trained on you. If by any unfortunate chance the salmon dies being played you return it dead, to float sadly downriver into the jaws of estuary seals.
Category three rivers in 2016 lack anglers. They are entrained in a vicious circle. No fishers, no fish on the tally, no escape from category three. No anglers means no rent. So owners have to dig deep, hoping for legislative change. Or abandon river management.
Suppose someone figures that salmon have quietly returned and it is worth a cast or two. Off he trots, with the tremulous eagerness of all anglers on a mission. He gets a couple. Why tell anyone? More folk will appear. On some rivers in south-west England anglers pass by under the trees circuiting walkers. They dread being asked about the fishing. Yet they have the jaunty walk of people who have not been wasting time. The best south-west rivers have sea-trout of over 15 pounds. To keep catching t hem, you keep mum. Bang goes t he river-history.
The Scottish government has had a bruising time over its catch and release policy. Manifestly, it was drafted by non-anglers. Putting back dead salmon serves no conservation purpose. Abandoned category three rivers, trapped by low catches, look forever doomed.
The government has achieved a rare trick: it has managed to offend everyone. Late in the day it recognises a self-inflicted problem. Some of Scotland’s angling clubs gave officials the severest roasting. The first paragraph of the latest government notice nervously talks about help for angling clubs with ‘marketing’ catch and release.
Someone tell them before they are released themselves, in Scotland you can’t market a nonsense.
‘Category three rivers in 2016 lack anglers. They are entrained in a vicious circle’