herbie29
Active Member
14 lbs spey spring salmon
Posts: 495
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Post by herbie29 on Nov 15, 2016 19:13:08 GMT
I thought I would start this thread to see what other members think the future holds. I am personaly optimistic and I will explain why.
Given the belief that we are now starting to enter a prominently spring fish time and there dose seam to be some evedence about suggesting this is the case.Over the last few years fishing on the spey early season I have seen quite a few fish running through around aberlour however little or no fishing realy takes place above carron some beats don't start until april as I tried to get on but was told this.So I believe the fish are running up river a bit quicker because as numbers build they are only holding or stopping in the main lies in pools therefore if they are already occupied they continue up stream to the next one. I belive old records from castle grant showed in the last time of prominently spring fish they were being caught from opening day and in that time you could not gey on the spey in spring for love or money. If this is infact that we are entering into a spring fish phase then even if survival rates stay the same I belive we will stard to see a slow increase in Salmon numbers. I have came to this conclusion on the following when the majority of returning fish were grilse and taking the Atlantic salmon trust figures of 450-750 eggs per pound and grilse running in resant years at anything from 1-7lbs taking an average of 4lbs then each hen spawns 1800-3000 now if we are going predominantly multi sea winter spring fish and they run say 7- 20lbs and take an average of say 12lbs then we have a range of 5400-9000 eggs spawned per hen fish. So my thought is if we are going in to a predomanantly spring run and the total number of fish running the river stays the same in the short term and survival are return percentages stay the same then total run size should increase if we stay in a predominantly spring run multi sea winter fish.
the above is non scientific but just my simple thinking of what the future might hold . If you believe any of what I have above please feel free to correct me I will not take offence just throwing it in for discusion.
Herbie
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Post by robmason on Nov 15, 2016 21:07:51 GMT
It's an interesting theory Herbie and there is no reason why runs wouldn't change, it's happened before. I wonder why we do see these changes from Spring fish to grilse to Autumn etc? Are there genetically distinct strains of fish or is it opportunism?
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Post by Roobarb on Nov 16, 2016 17:00:52 GMT
A swing back to springers might work out for most of Scotland but will be the end for most English & Welsh rivers. Droughts (exacerbated by abstraction) and high summer temperatures will make it very hard for salmon to survive over summer in many rivers south of the border. I've read old record books about good numbers of double figure fish being caught on moorland rivers in the Westcountry in April in the 1940's. You couldn't fit a 14oz fish in most of these shrunken rivers in summer now!
Andy
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Post by robmason on Nov 16, 2016 18:05:04 GMT
A swing back to springers might work out for most of Scotland but will be the end for most English & Welsh rivers. Droughts (exacerbated by abstraction) and high summer temperatures will make it very hard for salmon to survive over summer in many rivers south of the border. I've read old record books about good numbers of double figure fish being caught on moorland rivers in the Westcountry in April in the 1940's. You couldn't fit a 14oz fish in most of these shrunken rivers in summer now! Andy There is a book in the bar at the Fox and Hounds-you'll have to forgive me I don't remember the authors name- but essentially it is an angling memoir including fishing on the Taw in the 1950s and 60s. The Fox and Hounds water would have as many fish in the spring as the whole of the river manages now in a full season!
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Post by Willie Gunn on Nov 16, 2016 21:38:31 GMT
There is a book in the bar at the Fox and Hounds-you'll have to forgive me I don't remember the authors name- but essentially it is an angling memoir including fishing on the Taw in the 1950s and 60s. The Fox and Hounds water would have as many fish in the spring as the whole of the river manages now in a full season! Lemon Grey, he owned a hotel, but might have been the Torridge not the Taw. While since I read the book but I think he did a lot of "improvements" to his beat.
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Post by sinkingtip on Nov 16, 2016 22:36:09 GMT
It would certainly appear that the spring component is slowly improving on some rivers.
Grilse run's, over the past few seasons, have been erratic - and are likely to continue in this manner.
The bit I'm worried about is the possible collapse of the back-end run which, this year, has been virtually non existent on many rivers.
It seems we have leapt from the spring run being the 'endangered species' to the autumn run inheriting this dubious title - certainly going by this years performances.
It will be interesting to see what next year's back-end run will be like.
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Post by robmason on Nov 16, 2016 23:42:58 GMT
There is a book in the bar at the Fox and Hounds-you'll have to forgive me I don't remember the authors name- but essentially it is an angling memoir including fishing on the Taw in the 1950s and 60s. The Fox and Hounds water would have as many fish in the spring as the whole of the river manages now in a full season! Lemon Grey, he owned a hotel, but might have been the Torridge not the Taw. While since I read the book but I think he did a lot of "improvements" to his beat. No not LRH Gray. I will check and come back with it.
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Post by robmason on Nov 17, 2016 9:18:53 GMT
A Fishermans Reflections by Peter Harvey
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Post by devronmac on Nov 17, 2016 11:11:55 GMT
Thanks for giving us a "dose" of optimism Herbie but I am really sorry to say that I cannot really see any real reason to share it. If there is a move to spring run fish then my experience so far is that it is still very much in its infancy. None of the rivers that I fish have seen any real sign of a resurgence in spring (Feb-May) stocks. On the smaller rivers that I fish summer runs appear to have dried up with the rivers low flows from lack of rainfall, which seems to be a feature of our climate pattern, and hopes of a resurgence in autumn runs have been dashed for the last two seasons particularly. However "hope springs eternal " and I really hope that you are right that things might be changing for the better, however please bear in mind that since 2010 we have seen vastly reduced runs of atlantic salmon in nearly all our rivers combined with serious 'spate events' which have done nothing for juvenile fish stocks. Some rivers seem to have benefited from the coastal nets being off this year but in general the improvement has been fairly modest. However my own feelings and long term views are that until we get a handle on river predation nothing much is going to happen any time soon but I will be more than delighted to be proved wrong.
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herbie29
Active Member
14 lbs spey spring salmon
Posts: 495
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Post by herbie29 on Nov 17, 2016 19:15:12 GMT
Thanks for giving us a "dose" of optimism Herbie but I am really sorry to say that I cannot really see any real reason to share it. If there is a move to spring run fish then my experience so far is that it is still very much in its infancy. None of the rivers that I fish have seen any real sign of a resurgence in spring (Feb-May) stocks. On the smaller rivers that I fish summer runs appear to have dried up with the rivers low flows from lack of rainfall, which seems to be a feature of our climate pattern, and hopes of a resurgence in autumn runs have been dashed for the last two seasons particularly. However "hope springs eternal " and I really hope that you are right that things might be changing for the better, however please bear in mind that since 2010 we have seen vastly reduced runs of atlantic salmon in nearly all our rivers combined with serious 'spate events' which have done nothing for juvenile fish stocks. Some rivers seem to have benefited from the coastal nets being off this year but in general the improvement has been fairly modest. However my own feelings and long term views are that until we get a handle on river predation nothing much is going to happen any time soon but I will be more than delighted to be proved wrong. Mel I find it hard to judge any run size through my catches or others against historical catches as things have changed drastically due to forestay and intensive agriculture rivers rise and drop rapidly and have bigger extreams in levels as you have touched on. Years ago the spey would have taken 3 days or so to peak and over a week to drop back to pre rise level so you had a longer time with good levels for fishing..Then if you take the angling pressure apart from between boat of brig to Craigellachie bridge being fully booked anf fished other beats are relatively lightly fished until May and there were several ghillies on different rivers saying the same thing that if they had more rods booked they would have had more fish. Then if you take the tackel old records indicate on one beat that I know of it was frowned apon if you set up the fly rod before June it was spinning all the time and with the spinner you lost less days to water conditions.I also believethat our Salmon returns are more closely linked to levels of sea fish that have risen in the last few years and from what I have caught over the last two years have been fat as pigs. But I am sure time will tell as we are not sure what makes up or triggers different from of run and what makes them one,two or three winter fish. They say that the autumn run is totaly different run to spring but nature tends to adjust to different conditions on the quest for survival
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