In an unprecedented move, the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards (ASFB) has called on anglers not to kill any salmon in Scotland until the late Spring – with nets or rods – because of fears that some stocks may not be sustainable. With the number of returning adults very low in some areas, it’s said that a moratorium is needed until at least mid-May.
The Spey Salmon Fishing
Catch numbers a third down
The warning comes just a few days after the Spey Fishery Board described last year as one of the most challenging in recent times. It reported that catches on the river in 2013 had been around a third less than normal with 5,780 fish caught against a 10-year norm of 9,000. The board blamed low water levels as a result of long spells of dry weather in the summer as one of the causes.
Explaining the decision to make the appeal to anglers, ASFB chairman, Alasdair Laing, said that some stocks of spring salmon were close to, or below, being self-sustaining, adding that the earliest running fish were the most vulnerable. He stressed that it was “a well-established management principle that breeding fish should not be killed where a stock is threatened or vulnerable. On that basis it is the ASFB recommendation that no fish should be killed before 15 May.”
Last November, the Salmon and Trout Association accused netsmen in Scotland of threatening the “wholesale killing” of the vital Spring run. This follows the latter’s decision to scrap a longstanding voluntary agreement to delay the start of the salmon-catching season. But in a tit-for-tat exchange, the netsmen’s association accused anglers of doing nothing for salmon conservation while 14 years while they had suffered financially.
The Scottish Government has already announced a major review of fisheries management with the coastal netting to be considered as part of the review.