Archive for August, 2014

PELAGIC BY-CATCH: SAVING OUR SALMON

Sunday, August 17th, 2014

AST APPEAL FOR £5 DONATIONS TO PELAGIC BY-CATCH PROJECT AND THE CHANCE OF WINNING SOME SALMON FISHING AT FINAVON CASTLE WATER ON THE SOUTH ESK TOO!

Dear Supporter

I have decided to offer three days salmon fishing for two rods at Finavon as a lottery for a name which I will publicly draw from a hat in the Finavon Hotel on the 1st of October. The three days will be the last three days of the 2014 season which can be good fishing if there is a nice level of water. The three days are the 29th, 30th and 31st of October 2014.

To enter for the lottery you need to donate a minimum of £5 to the AST and mention ‘Pelagic By-catch’. Go to the AST website home page www.atlanticsalmontrust.org and double click on the ‘donate’ button top right of the home page.

By donating you will therefore contribute to an important project to save our salmon from getting accidentally killed by trawlers AND you will have a chance of winning some very nice fishing on the Finavon Castle Water.

Derek with 14lbs salmon from Tyndals

A 15lbs salmon at Finavon in 2014

For details of the Pelagic by-catch project please see the AST website or visit either the Finavon Casdtle Water Facebook Pages or the Atlantic salmon Trust Facebook Pages.

TA

Lost at Sea – a film about salmon mortality

Wednesday, August 13th, 2014
In the last few days the Atlantic Salmon Trust has hosted the visit to Scotland of Deidre Brennan, the ‘Lost at Sea’ director and Rick Rosenthal, the internationally renowned wildlife photographer who worked with Sir David Attenborough on his Blue Planet series of films.
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Where our salmon feed: the west coast of Greenland

During their time here they held interviews and filmed the famous Celtic engraved salmon on the standing stone in Glamis Manse garden, the South Esk at Kinnaird, Finavon and Inshewan, the Dee at Altries, the Moray Firth, Spey on the Brae Water and Usan Fisheries near Montrose. Financial contributions have come from the Dee and Esk Fishery Boards and from proprietors on the Spey, as well as the main contribution from AST.
Statter photo of leaping salmon
Atlantic salmon: cultural icon
Why do we think this film – Lost at Sea – is so important?It is fair to claim that most salmon fishermen and many wildlife managers and conservationists are aware of the decline in numbers of wild Atlantic salmon in nearly all regions of the North Atlantic basin. Over the last thirty years numbers of salmon at sea have dropped from over 8 million to about 3 million. By any measure that is a steep decline. Warning bells are ringing loud in all the salmon countries of the Atlantic Ocean because it is now recognised that the ‘cliff edge’ collapse in wild salmon abundance threatens their very existence. The decline is especially severe in European countries in the southern sector of the salmon’s range.
Sidirovka
The Russian Kola Peninsula: Sidorovka River. Bastion of wilderness

‘Lost at Sea’ picks up the story of that decline and the measures being taken to address the threats to survival where human intervention can make a difference. Filming has taken place in Canada, USA, Iceland, Norway, Ireland and now in Scotland. It is a truly international production. Its total budget is well over $500,000 and it has been five years in the making, taking the cue from the results of the highly acclaimed SALSEA project.

Usan Nets 4

Killing Atlantic salmon at sea: coastal nets off the South Esk estuary

No-one is making assumptions about the productivity of the freshwater environment. Fishery managers are fully aware of the need for every salmon river to produce the maximum number possible of naturally generated smolts, because it is smolt production that is the baseline for genetic diversity and numbers of returning adult fish. While not every river is producing enough smolts, it is fair to claim that many are.

Rottal original

Where it all begins: the Rottal Burn in Glen Clova

The issue is what happens to those smolts when they hit salt water. We know that well over 90% of them die at sea.
Why?
Where?
How?
What can be done to reduce mortality?
Above all, how can we bring more adult salmon back into our rivers?

‘Lost at Sea’ looks at the whole lives of wild Atlantic salmon, the relationship of this iconic species through the millenia of history with man, how rural communities still depend on these fish, how the cultures of the North Artlantic countries continue to be influenced by the salmon, and where things started to go wrong.

The film explores human exploitation, lethal and otherwise, of wild salmon, the impacts of aquaculture, pollution, predation – all in the context of climate change, the warming ocean and massive, unpredictable changes to weather patrterns, ocean currents, erratic temperatures and consequent availability of prey species on which salmon depend.

Dolphins killing salmon 1

Dolphins killing salmon in the Moray Firth

The film is superbly filmed and assembled by a highly proferssional and experienced US team, led by Deidre Brennan. It could be seen as a nostalgic lament for the lost King of Fish by people who see its decline as inevitable. On the other hand it could be seen as a wake-up call for peoples of the North Atlantic region to put pressure on politicians and decision-makers to take action – where effective outcomes are possible – and halt the decline.

The film will be distributed early in 2015. It will be the greatest film about wild Atlantic salmon at sea ever made. It has the pedigree, the passion and the support to change the landscape for ever.

TA

 

Fresh Salmon into the South Esk

Wednesday, August 13th, 2014
HURRICANE BERTHA BRINGS IN SOME BIG SALMON
Yesterday afternoon I walked down Milton Beat and was stopped on the way by a gesticulating Mark Holden, our tenant this week. He told me (somewhat breathlessly!) that he had just lost two big salmon in quick succession in Willows. The River was still purling down, well above 2’0″ on the Gella Bridge level marker, but had cleared substantially during the day to enable Mark to fish the fly. I had seen him earlier in the day, after Monday’s washout, when he had shown me a 3″ Waddington he proposed using in the heavy water. I made no comment because I thought it rather unlikely in the heavy flow that any fish would take a fly, no matter how big.
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This photo was taken from the Red Brae Suspension Bridge during the run-off of the Hurrican Bertha spoate on 12/8/2014. We saw salmon and grilse using the spate to migrate upstream. Among these fish were some large salmon.
The fly he was fishing in the late afterenoon, after the water had subsided significantly, was a 2″ tube (Willie Gunn I think). The first fish took very quietly in the lower section of Willows. For a few minutes it cooperated without much drama, until he applied side strain, at which point the fish took off like a banshee, stripping all the line and most of the backing off the reel before the leader snapped under the strain. The salmon was somewhere near Volcano – a distance of more than 100 metres – when it disconnected. Mark was in no doubt that this was a big salmon, well into the teens of pounds, if not bigger.
Soon afterwards he hooked another salmon a few yards further down the pool which, after 3 or 4 minutes, reclaimed its freedom by throwing the hook. In Mark’s opinion this was also a big fish. He also commented that he had seen many other fish, mainly MSW salmon but also the occasional grilse. As far as he was able to see, all these fish were fresh run.
It is not surprising therefore, that when I met Mark on the riverbank after his two encounters with big salmon fresh in from the sea, he was a bit shaken and emotional. Such are the excitements encountered by salmon fly fishermen, not perhaps as often as we would like, but in my reckoning worth the wait…
TA