River reflections

The number of smolts reaching the sea is falling, and keen fishers are being drawn to foreign waters. Michael Wigan ponders the ways we might solve this ever-growing problem

Fishing season 2020 is upon us and the silver tourist has announced his reappearance. Some rivers were in double figures by early February. Early fishing, though, is not about numbers. The leaping salmon is the first re-awakening as days get longer. The air is fresh, the riverbank is untrod, the first migratory birds tremulously head northwards, and the black water is inscrutable. The gleaming salmon is a miracle of promise, a portent that all is right with the world.

I fished with the man who caught the first salmon on the River Helmsdale, squeaking his accomplishment just inside the month of January on the 30th. As an onlooker said, ‘I’ve never seen a man look so happy.’ The septuagenarian angler’s life spanned many occupations, from lobster pots to distilleries. His 13lb salmon would keep a smile on his face a long time and he was full of craic and repartee.

A river-rafter from Ontario was the first person I encountered earlier on the opening day, 11th January. Political slurs about the exclusivity of salmon angling were never very clever and the Fisheries Bill was dropped in 2017 because government realised they were not trusted to manage this resource. Indeed, none were anglers, it is unlikely they trusted themselves.

Maybe more sympathetic attitudes are developing. Nationalists give the impression of being on a constant war footing, but if they are girding their electoral loins again they need every vote. Anglers are a big constituency. In one controversial area, controlling what are called ‘piscivorous’ birds, there is a gear-shift.

Marine Scotland accepts the overwhelming evidence that cormorants and sawbill ducks like goosanders can gobble up an unholy proportion of smolts striving to get to sea. River boards from across Scotland have laboriously collected piscivorous birds, counted the young salmon in their stomachs, or frozen them for counting elsewhere. When as many as eighty per cent of the outwards migration was demonstrably disappearing down the gullets of piscivorous birds there was a clear opportunity for intervention. Salmon are dream-ticket creatures, reptilian-looking cormorants are not.

Hitherto river boards sought licenses for a precise number of predators inside tight time windows.

Getting licenses was a battle. Marine Scotland’s chief has now waived more research in favour of action. Smaller boards were anyway unable to amass the data to substantiate an application; it did not mean their smolts were any safer. Piscivorous licenses should become more widely available.

Maybe the ubiquitous talk about salmon in crisis moved the needle. Then, the array of privately-funded research made it appear that only the private sector cared about salmon. While the inhabitants of Skye complained about their island swarming with tourists, ghillies lamented the dwindling rod-carrying visitors, lured away to Iceland or Russia, places where salmon come first.

Someone may have noticed that fishing is Scotland’s biggest participation sport. River openings in January with whisky and pipers made good media material and government could not get a handle on a culture beyond its ken. Whatever the reason, a mood change is afoot.

On hatcheries and re-stocking, however, there remains an impasse. Government notes the scientific consensus that artificial stocking may weaken salmon survival. They understand, too, that this view is often dismissed on the riverbank. Last

May government declared that it intended not to license hatchery programmes unless the juveniles were put back in the river either as ova, buried in gravel, or as small unfed fry, fish without hatchery imprint. Rearing for longer looked doomed.

How quickly the policy hardens remains to be seen. Clandestine, or unlicensed stocking, has occurred and is known about. However, there are potential pitfalls in using restrictive law against people claiming to be rescuing the iconic fish which has been neglected. Rearing fish illicitly could become like bootleg booze, a new Prohibition.

On the riverbank in early spring these ticklish questions fade away.

Cormorants and sawbill ducks like goosanders can gobble up an unholy proportion of smolts striving to get to sea