Salmon Fishing Scotland River Tay Report .

Salmon Fishing Scotland River Tay Report .


For those who didn’t see the article on the Board’s annual report in yesterday’s Courier, here’s what it said.

Courier 7/1/09

Tay Board’s important work continues

WHILE CATCH and release and restocking are important parts of the Tay District Salmon Fisheries Board’s policy for improving salmon numbers, projects to open up more of the system to migratory fish are also being carried out its report for 2007-08 reveals.

More than 1100 spring fish were caught and returned before the end of May last year, almost double the 2007 figure.

The Board’s hatchery was at full capacity last winter, and some 2,690,000 eyed ova and unfed fry were stocked out in the system in the spring.

The Dowie at Meikleour was blocked by two massive log jams, and Board bailiffs cleared these during the summer, which should allow easier access for running fish to spawn in the burn.

In the Coupar Burn, a tributary of the Isla, financial assistance from the Tay Ghillies Association has allowed the board to open a passage in an insurmountable weir and this will be opened in the spawning period to permit fish passage upstream.

In addition, on the Dall Burn the board plan to install a fish pass on a weir used to divert water for a hydro station at the former Rannoch School, while another weir on the Urlar Burn at Aberfeldy is to be removed.

Elsewhere, work has been carried out to reduce the tree canopy to allow sunlight to reach some stream beds.

Improvements in fish husbandry since the banning of the fungicide Malachite Green saw more of the hen fish, which were stripped of eggs the previous year, survive to contribute again.

Sea trout have always been the poor relation of the salmon with in some cases large sea trout being noted as salmon so as not to disappoint the angler as a ghillie explained on one occasion.

Now for the first time the board are expressing concern at the decline in sea trout numbers.

Following a poor sea trout season on the Earn the main sea trout water on the system the board are to recommend that all sea trout caught in the Tay system should be released.

With little commercial netting of sea trout taking place, it is felt that problem lies in the North Sea, where the sand eel and sprat populations have declined drastically partially through industrial fishing, but latterly the result of climate change.


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