Be careful what you wish for

Rash new restrictions for anglers will not make the slightest bit of difference to salmon numbers

By the time you read this, the biggest change ever known in the way we fish for salmon in Scotland will have taken place. On April 1, the Scottish Government implemented measures dictating whether a salmon can or cannot be killed on a Scottish river. This has been done by giving each river a ranking dependent on whether they consider any rod exploitation to be sustainable. Rivers are ranked Category 1 (freedom to kill as many fish as you want) to Category 3 (100% mandatory catch and release). The measures have been met with huge opposition from local angling interests and derision by some fishery managers; 74% of rivers have been placed in Category 3.

Few anglers will realise just how close we came to these unpopular measures being thrown out at the last hurdle. Had it not been for the SNP majority on the Rural Affairs, Climate Change & Environment (RACCE) committee, none of whom were willing to break the party line in spite of overwhelming opposition at the final meeting to authorise the legislation, these measures would not have seen the light of day.

It all started in 2012, when the Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA) made a complaint to Europe (and later NASCO) that the Scottish Government was not meeting its obligations to salmon under the Habitats Directive. What they were referring to was the mixed stock netting stations that line the coast and plunder stocks

‘Measures to control angling on all Scottish rivers are unnecessary and based on the wrong evidence’

of several rivers, making locally informed management impossible. But the S&TA had not taken into account the implications of their complaint. It has ended up being a case of be careful what you wish for.

The Scottish Government, instead of closing the netting stations down (which they subsequently did last year, announcing a three-year ban on all salmon netting outside estuary limits), brought in a tit-for-tat measure that targeted rod anglers as well. This was the start of this halfbaked scheme that has been rushed through parliament, is based on inadequate data and has lost the vital buy-in of anglers on the ground.

When the RACCE committee met to debate the measures, MSPs from all parties grilled the civil servants present and unearthed the faults in the proposed legislation. It was discovered that locally available fisheries data had not been used, the threat of EU infraction was not a real danger this year as no proceedings were in place (which is what the Scottish Government had used as their justification) and that conservation measures for the netting stations and just 15 European designated rivers (SACs) would have been more than enough to satisfy Europe even if proceedings had been in place.

In other words, measures to control angling on all Scottish rivers are unnecessary and based on the wrong evidence. It also turns out that, due to widespread voluntary Catch and Release having been practiced for years on vulnerable rivers, there are only 20 salmon being killed annually in each fishery district that has had a Category 3 imposed upon it. All this nonsense, which will have huge repercussions on 74% of Scotland’s rivers, is to save the amount of salmon a small group of seals eats in a day.

Angling clubs will be particularly hard hit. Before the start of the 2016 season, clubs such as the 400-member Inverness AC, the grassroots Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association and the River Earn Improvement Association were all predicting huge drops in memberships as a result of the imposition of compulsory catch and release.

In some ways, I suppose we can be thankful – when Ireland was faced with (an actual) threat of a fine from Europe, their response was to close some rivers for angling completely. Perhaps this is what lies in store for Scotland when they realise that restricting angling, which is not the reason for the decline, won’t make the slightest difference to salmon numbers.

The S&TA have a few questions to answer, because what we have ended up with is one unelected body complaining to another unelected body which then forces a democratically elected body to take unpopular and damaging action. Welcome to the future!