Better times for the king of fish

Nov 27 2007 by Moc Morgan, Western Mail

IN MY writings I tend to refer quite often to the “good old days”. I wonder if this is because history was my favourite subject in school.

Yet I firmly believe, and know many agree with me, that we, the grey brigade, have been fortunate to live through the golden age of country sports.

No doubt someone will respond by reminding me that many Welsh rivers held an exceptionally good head of salmon this last October.

Touche!

After so many lean years, this promises to be a good spawning season with more salmon on the spawning redds than has been the case for a very long time. It is widely believed that the abundance of salmon this last fishing season is a direct result of the demise of the Irish drift nets. And again it could be that as in Joseph’s dreams, the lean years are over and we could now be entering the years of plenty.

The abundance of salmon is good news for the Environment Agency Wales (EAW), all angling clubs in Wales and more important still, the future of our salmon stocks.

However there is one major downside to this marvellous news – whenever and wherever you have good stocks of fish in the rivers you can be assured that you will also have a good stock of poachers there too. The only time you know poachers are idle is when stocks are low and yes – they have been fairly idle in recent years.

While all anglers welcome the increase in salmon stocks we sincerely hope that the bailiffs will be also be out in abundance.

In 2006 the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) asked the EAW to provide it with a review of their current enforcement organisation and of their efforts to address stakeholders’ concerns.

This was WAG’s way of responding to the criticisms that had come from different areas of Wales regarding the dearth of bailiffs overseeing the rivers. Anglers were concerned that in certain areas poachers were very active because of the dearth of bailiffs.

At the time the principal fishery officer with the EAW told me they had decided to place more emphasis on the management of fish stocks rather than on enforcement. More resources had therefore gone towards enhancing fisheries by the enhancement of fish stocks. Protecting stocks did not have such a high profile.

There is no doubt that getting the correct financial balance is difficult and it would seem that there was not enough money for everything.

When the EAW produced their recent proposals for enforcement for the Minister of Rural Affairs, Elin Jones, who has responsibilities for fisheries, she instructed them to assess the scale of illegal activity along Welsh rivers and cost it in an enforcement strategy.

She also asked them to address the worrying issue of fish theft – something which has escalated in recent times – especially of carp and pike. She would like to see the environment management team help the enforcement staff.

It appears the minister would like to see the enforcement group meet on a regular basis and the personnel involved build up a good rapport with other organisations that could help them in different ways. This is certainly a good directive and anglers welcome such leadership.

I am delighted the minister (with the wisdom we expect from her – after all she is a Cardi) has directed the EAW to make more use of volunteers such as those involved in Crime Watch.

In Wales we have an excellent chain of angling clubs, some of which have guarded their waters and interest for more than a century and they could help materially with enforcement. At least they could be a source of bankside information – which is a very important aspect of enforcement. There is also a rapid growth in River Trusts and this means more people on our river banks with an interest in our rivers – this too means better information about the personnel on the river banks.

Many years ago the last two weeks in November and the first two in December were an extremely busy time for poachers as this was the time of year when salmon moved up into the small rivers to spawn. In those days under a strong light they would gaff the salmon out from the water – a gaff being a big hook which had a barb to avoid the fish kicking off. Very nasty business – but there were plenty of salmon about and the poachers had many a hungry mouth to feed.

The number of salmon moving up Welsh rivers in the ’60s and ’70s was astounding but when the UDN fish disease and the acidic problem arrived the stocks dropped alarmingly. It is sad to learn that the acidic problem is still with us and one can only hope that the excellent efforts by the EAW to eliminate the problem in some rivers will be successful.

Salmon is a precious creature – it is a gem of the aquatic environment. We have been wasteful with this wonderful asset.

Let us now hope that the good old days are on the way back and that respect is shown to the king of fish.