herbie29
Active Member
14 lbs spey spring salmon
Posts: 495
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Post by herbie29 on Oct 22, 2012 18:18:36 GMT
With it being a nice day today I decided to have a walk along the spey from beat 3-1 on the brae water. Right from the start I was seeing goosanders and mergansers along with cormorants and herons in total I must have seen around around 25 goosanders/mergansers,4 cormorants and 2 herons on the river on my way up the river in a total distance of around 3 miles. There were 1 group of around 15 goosanders and mergansers between the rock pool and the flats. On my way back down to the car when walking through the wooded area between lower ewe and lord march I heard a noise of birds above me and when I looked up I saw around 30 cormorants possibly more flying down river and as there is no other large body's of water they must have been on the river at some point.With this amount of predation on or near the river in such a short distance it is no wonder the river stocks are in such decline.It scares me to think of what the total number of predator birds on the whole river with what I have seen today Not the best of pictures as only the little camera Herbie
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Tyne Andrew
Active Member
April Spring Salmon 2010 - Lower Pitchroy, River Spey
Posts: 1,104
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Post by Tyne Andrew on Oct 22, 2012 18:23:34 GMT
I don't know why people on the river don't just shoot them to keep them down to sensible levels. River keepers are a hell of a lot more tolerant than game keepers. IMO
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fredo
Active Member
Posts: 1,095
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Post by fredo on Oct 22, 2012 18:44:40 GMT
It is probable that every second paddler is a twitcher and the river keepers dont fancy days in court? But I would be amazed if the job of predator control is not getting carried out. Quietly!
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Tyne Andrew
Active Member
April Spring Salmon 2010 - Lower Pitchroy, River Spey
Posts: 1,104
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Post by Tyne Andrew on Oct 22, 2012 18:49:38 GMT
It is probable that every second paddler is a twitcher and the river keepers dont fancy days in court? But I would be amazed if the job of predator control is not getting carried out. Quietly! Or a twit perhaps! Indeed, they are protected birds Fredo. I believe there may be a quota to shoot these birds on the Spey? No doubt it's not enough though
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herbie29
Active Member
14 lbs spey spring salmon
Posts: 495
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Post by herbie29 on Oct 22, 2012 19:30:38 GMT
Yes I do believe there is quotas and I think the quota is less than the total I saw today for the whole river and they have to use non toxic shot and last year the ghillies were asked to submit the shot birds so the boffins could quantify how Meany fish they were eating but I would bet my last pound that the first test would be on the shot.It is beyond belief that they have such protection as goosanders and mergansers are non native birds to the UK and if you look up the definition of a cormorant it is a sea-bird so to me if they are on fresh water they should be fair game with no protection.
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Post by stincharlad on Oct 22, 2012 21:23:52 GMT
Very difficult one Herbie. Here on the Stinchar we are polluted with mergansers and cormorants. To obtain a license to control them you must carry out 2 bird counts at different times of the year, then if granted a license ,it is usually to be allowed to shoot something like 2 cormorants and 3 mergansers, absolute joke! I cut open a cormorant recently on the riverbank (must have flown into wires or something) and it had 5 parr in its stomach, now if we have 5 pair on this river every day (which is a conservative estimate) you don't need to have a degree in mathematics to get very alarmed at the total for one week of this predatation. We as anglers are going to have to campain vigorously to address this issue before it is too late. Remember the song sheet from the scientists and river boards about how we have no control out at sea but we must ensure to send as many smolts back to sea as possible. Well right now we are failing to do this.
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Post by devronmac on Oct 22, 2012 21:32:19 GMT
There can be absolutely no doubt that river predation by birds is the greatest single impediment on our rivers to getting smolts to sea in the numbers required to sustain our salmon stocks. Cormorant numbers are now up to 35000 in the UK compared to the 1980s when there were around 3500. Record your sightings of cormorants and mergansers and sawbills at www.cormorantwatch.org/
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Post by earnfisher on Oct 27, 2012 20:42:00 GMT
The Angling Trust have a cormorant watch which covers the whole of the U.K. Very few fishers go to the bother of using it though. On the lower beat of Perthshires River Earn that i have fished for well over thirty years we at first never had many goosanders/cormorants about. Most were bad fliers and ended up having an accident. About ten Years ago there was that many of them that i have counted over seventy in a morning flying upstream [goosanders] Now they are only a few BUT the grayling and the trout have also gone. The cormorants can be seen swimming amongst the spawning salmon. When fishing at the backend if you see no cormorants then there are few if any fish entering the river. The other problem is the otters. More of them now than there ever was wiping out the fish/eels/ducks etc. Bob
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Post by devronmac on Oct 27, 2012 21:14:07 GMT
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Post by lordoftheflies on Oct 28, 2012 8:51:50 GMT
I think you are all very selfish.
It is nature and even if it is happening in a unnatural environment.... that has been caused by our interference....you seriously can not go about slaughtering everything just so our fishing hopefully improves.
You really want to look at yourselves and ask how may fish do us anglers kill for our own greed. I see it all the time on my local river....some people just don't give a s##t and can not wait to get their fish into the boot of a car......
"It's for christmas".... ;D
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2012 10:08:52 GMT
yep - the villain of the piece is us, man, humans. these creatures co-existed side by side happily for thousands of years, maintaining healthy, sustainable populations, before we came along, raped the high seas and inshore waters and turned what started out as a livelihood into a sport. now we want to punish them for trying to adapt to our bad behaviour. reminds me of michael herr on the vietnamese - we napalmed off their crops and flattened their villages and then admired the restlessness in their spirit. - sort of thing.
mind you, there are a lot of them about!
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Post by tweedbunnet on Oct 28, 2012 10:58:13 GMT
lordoftheflies/windknot, I don't total agree with your comments. Yes, there are some fish-hungry anglers for whom every salmon is a trophy to be taken home and displayed to admiring famliy/pals etc. But maybe not as many as, say, 20-30 years ago. I think there has to be some form of control on those types of birds which are voracious predators of juvenile fish stock. As pointed out by stincharlad, there is a huge total of fish eaten by these birds. I read that an Adult Comorant consumes about 1 lb of fish a day (see 1lb x365 days in a year is a lot of Parr. Start multiplying it by the number of birds in a flock and you cannot fail to see the consequences for juvenile Salmon, Sea Trout and trout. Those sorts of totals really are an enormous attack on any river system to maintain a sustantainable stock in these times of other fishing pressures/issues. Given that the Act was drawn up in the late 1970s/early 1980's, is it not time that it was properly reviewed by Parliament and brought into line with the current situation/realities? While I can appreciate the "live and let live" argument and that man has been the "culprit" (as usual), I do not think the time for lassez faire is now if we, as Game Fishing anglers, want to have a sport we can enjoy in the future. Anglers are doing a lot already with C&R practicsed on many rivers. The argument should be taken to the root cause which, in my humble opinion, rests with the scarcity of fish stocks around our coastal waters. And in that context, I think that the commerical fishing of the humble sandeel and similar fish through trawling is one of the pricincipal reasons why so many birds normally resident in estauries and coastlines have moved up river. There are also lot more seagulls about inland these days. What they would do to stocks if they started to "learn" to fish for them on rivers is anybone's guess. I don't know how to restore the stock of fish these predators need in order to return them to the coast but I do think we are kidding ourselves on if we don't control them when they move into spawing areas. tb
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Post by earnfisher on Oct 28, 2012 11:15:06 GMT
The process is quite simple as are most things in life. The fish get plenty of food and spawn well which creates a lot of fish [food]. The predators come along including man and take what they can and the fish [stocks] fall away. The predators cut down there breeding [except man] because there is not eneough food to feed the young and the stocks [fish] recover and so it goes on since time started. Only problem man keeps wanting more and is the top predator. If we want more fish in the rivers then we have to remove the predators.
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Post by lordoftheflies on Oct 28, 2012 12:18:31 GMT
Tough...there are people who love birds and don't want them shot. Just like some anglers who really love the salmon/fish and i say (some) with caution...next time you see some absolute clown come walking up the riverbank with a coloured(spring) hen fish of say 14lbs...like i did....ask him or maybe even yourself...to count the eggs in her egg sack. Still i very much doubt you'l get any sense out of them as they are born into greed. 2 fish per angler per year is enough salmon for anyone , i don't see what all the fuss is with the taste either...i'd much rather have a fish supper from the chippy....but there l be none of that left shortly too... I wish i had thought to ask this question at the time ,but it was only in discussion with a Ghillie yesterday that the question should be put.
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Post by lordoftheflies on Oct 28, 2012 12:23:52 GMT
There are also lot more seagulls about inland these days. What they would do to stocks if they started to "learn" to fish for them on rivers is anybone's guess.
Nah, the sea gulls are happy enough feeding of the rubbish we humans fling about the countryside...partly why they have moved inland.... ;D
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Post by tweedbunnet on Oct 28, 2012 15:39:03 GMT
lordoftheflies,
Ghillies I have spoken to over the past few years have pretty much stated to a man that they have never seen as many predators on their rivers as of now.
Is it right to just passively accept this change in behaviour or should we do something about it? The juvenile fish stocks (including Brown Trout as well as Salmon and Sea Trout) don't have much of a say in the matter - who else will look after their future if not us?
tb
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Post by lordoftheflies on Oct 28, 2012 15:42:32 GMT
My only answer to that can be nature itself .
It's certainly not worth us getting all in a tizzy on forums like this because our say will have little impact on what will or should be done, so in a sense what will be will be i suppose.
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Post by tweedbunnet on Oct 28, 2012 18:41:49 GMT
Fair enough - we will certainly see what the outcome is over the next 10 years. I suspect the scientists will still tell us there are sustainable populations of juvenile fish etc and the future is rosy.
Meantime, where's my Carp rod gone?
tb
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Post by devronmac on Nov 5, 2012 14:12:00 GMT
I've just had a letter from SANA (Scottish Anglers National Association) in my capacity as Chairman of River Spey Anglers Association(RSAA) RSAA are members of SANA. SANA is setting up a system to record the number of cormorants roosting inland in Scotland. They have written several letters to Scottish Ministers and SNH expressing concern about the increase in predation by birds but to no avail, however SANA believes that if sufficient anglers record the birds they see inland it might change matters. Last year SNH received applications for control of fish eating birds at 23 sites in Scotland. Of these applications 18 were granted.Applications for the other sites were refused on the basis that there was insufficient evidence that damage was being caused or was likely to be caused. This is a seperate initiative to the 'cormorant watch' programme I mentioned in earlier posts. It would seem that it is not possible to extract Scottish statistics from this existing initiative. If you are truly concerned about cormorants on your river you can sign up as a volunteer for this Cormorant survey. Send your details to admin@sana.org.uk in the first instance. Visit www.sana.org.uk/ for more information.
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Post by earnfisher on Nov 5, 2012 17:26:24 GMT
S.A.N.A is that them at last following in the footsteps of the Angling Trust. Better late than never i subpose.
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