A FAMOUS Scottish salmon river is reporting the worst fishing season for 60 years although the juvenile fish on the Spey are "thriving".
A long, cold winter, followed by drought conditions in the summer are being blamed.
The Spey Fishery Board (SFB) has reported catches of salmon and grilse (salmon which have spent only one winter at sea before returning to the river) for the 2013 season as 5780, in comparison to the 7490 caught for the same period last year. That was the worst since 1952 when only 5590 were caught.
The report says that the low water throughout the summer had seen water levels dropping close to those seen during the 1976 drought. But despite the difficult conditions on rivers, anglers had responded positively by returning more fish caught to the river than ever before. Throughout the season, 88% of all salmon and grilse caught were released, an increase on the 85% returned for the same period last year. The release rate for spring salmon, traditionally caught between February and the end of April, was 92%.
SFB director Roger Knight said: "Release rates in the Spey are highly creditable. They are testimony to the conservation-minded attitudes that are prevalent on the Spey and they are particularly relevant as a means of compensating for the poor survival rate of salmon at sea. The Board is grateful to all of the ghillies, whom it recognises have played such an active role in persuading so many anglers to co-operate with the policy."
But SFB biologist Brian Shaw had more positive news and said: "Juvenile salmon and trout counts have been good in all areas, and at a level not seen in the last six years."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article