Ian Borthwick the current ghillie came to the beat in May 1981 a year after Jock retired and is the vital connection between the past and present, sadly Jock having passed away in the 1980s. Jock continued to live in a cottage on the beat after retirement, in fact it’s the same cottage our fishing party live in today.

The average seasons catch in the past was 269 fish, compared with the present average catch of 237 fish; this represents about a 12% decrease. The fishing effort has increased by approximately 90%, we anglers spend more time in salmon pools today, than our predecessors, and there are more rods. I would suggest, in real terms this 12% reduction is probably much higher. The total catch for the past was 6,999 salmon, compared with the present 4,737 salmon.

In the past the months of February, March, August and September were lightly fished the latter two months probably due to grouse and stag shooting. Carron is a 5-rod beat, the records show that in the past the full compliment of rods only fished for 4 months. Today the exact opposite would be the case, with the entire compliment of rods fishing for the full 8 months of the fishing season.

During late February and early March 1955, Jock Smith recorded 12 un-fishable days in his diary. On either side of these entries we have low water levels, and low water temperatures, the probable cause for this was ice and grue, and ‘snaw bree’, indicating lower air temperatures, and snowfall in the Cairngorms. A more common occurrence then than it is now.

As irrefutable evidence of climatic change I offer this finding, made when fishing at a famous beat downstream of Grantown this year. The ghillie, an educated man and champion gardener for whom I have a great respect made a statement, as he often does.… ‘Aye Rab the winters are not so cold now’…after three fish-less days I thought this was a clever diversion…anyway he had me hooked… ‘Are you sure?’…I asked?... ‘Absolutely he replied’...

Apparently the litmus test being, his thick woollen combination set, yellow now with age being 27 years old was no longer required. Once a sought after garment, indeed it was the last one in the Grantown ‘shoppie’. (I wonder how). I’m sure his wife was pleased…! I understand its current function has something to do with dahlias.

Nowadays the main spring run seem to run further upstream, before slowing up, perhaps in part due to the warmer water temperatures in May. Jock’s diary records water temperatures in early May 1955 around 10 degrees lower than May 2000. Probably caused by snowmelt ‘snaw bree’. The lower water temperatures would have slowed down the main spring run, and gave Carron anglers their best* May on record. Refer to extract above.

I was puzzled with some entries ‘Xs’ in the diary at the beginning of my research; Ian Borthwick cleared this up telling me that Mr ‘X’ was in actual fact Jock himself, there were an awful lot of Xs recorded. One day, when speaking to Jock Ian asked him how many salmon he had caught in his lifetime, the reply was 4,000. Jock did not have a reputation for overstating things!

My research shows it was not all good times, there are ups and downs, salmon angling does appear to be a cyclic sport. The graphs in my report showing spring, summer and autumn trends clearly illustrate this. The overall tendency is a reduction of spring fish, with summer salmon and grilse showing an increase. These cyclic patterns are a constant feature, the noticeable difference being we have far less fish now, than we did in the past. The reasons for this are not properly understood, but looking back improves our chances of understanding.

The International Salmon Accord states. An important benefit of catch and release is that it allows the recreational fishery to continue to operate, boosting local economies and financing vital fisheries management programmes. When fishermen are allowed to practice their sport, their commitment to and involvement in saving the resource is maintained”..So Every Fish Counts’ Anglers fish to catch fish..not necessarily to kill them...conserving stocks... means more fish and fish attract anglers.

However we are relative newcomers to the experience of catch and release techniques in Scotland compared with say North America or Russia. We need to educate ourselves in this respect, and seek the advice and help of experts. The Atlantic Salmon Federation Catch & Release Club website (see 'LINX')really is worth a visit. Extremely informative and full of very useful practical, and scientific information.

The ASF say “Catch and Release is all about survival of the species. Carefully released wild Atlantic salmon live and go on to spawn, increasing prospects for future generations.” During the 1990s Dr. Bruce Tufts of Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, along with several associates, undertook a number of research projects.

He states...”Our results indicate that most Atlantic salmon do survive being caught and released. Regardless of the conditions, the majority of the salmon that were exhaustively exercised or angled in each of our studies survived. These findings are probably not surprising since this species is already adapted to cope with periods of exhaustive exercise during its arduous spawning migrations” “In Iceland a three year study in the late 1970s saw 42 angled salmon tagged and released. Fifteen per cent were angled a second time. One hundred per cent survival of caught and released salmon was observed.” “In conclusion if the angler learns proper catch and release techniques and keeps the Atlantic salmon in the water the fish will almost always survive.”

At Carron catch and release is voluntary. Along with 4 other beats on the Spey Carron is taking part in a pilot tagging scheme on behalf of the Spey Research Trust. The system for tagging is simple, each beat uses a unique colour of floy tag. If the angler wants to release the fish, and the ghillie is there, he will net the fish using a knotless net, keep it in the water, calm it down, then insert a tag before gently releasing the fish. The unique floy tag colours for all the beats taking part in the scheme are Brae Water (white floy tags), Delfur (yellow floy tags), Arndilly (blue floy tags), Carron (pink floy tags), Tulchan D beat (orange floy tags).

Although it’s early days 5 months into the pilot scheme, the story on the River Spey so far is. Fish angled and tagged by all 5 Spey beats at the time of writing is approximately 100 fish, with around 9% angled a second time, with sadly only 33% of these fish re-released to spawn. The floy tag should mean the fish has a passport to the spawning grounds, well it would appear not for some. The tragedy is this, 27,000 salmon eggs that should have been deposited in the spawning grounds this year are in someones fridge, and a passport to someones plate. That is if they even bothered to take the fish home. These numbers are easy to calculate once you adopt the logic of the Spey Fishery Board below.

So does catch and release do any good? According to the Spey Fishery Board some benefits can already be estimated writing in the Monthly Briefing July 2000 they say...“The majority of spring salmon are female (approx. 70%) and the average weight of the salmon released in this study was 9lbs. Female salmon produce around 700 eggs per pound weight, so if 49 of the remaining 70 springers are female then around 310,000 extra spring salmon eggs will be deposited during spawning in November. This is equivelant of a moderate hatchery operation but the clear benefit is that these eggs will be spawned naturally and better adapted for the rigours of both the Spey and the Ocean”.

The story at Carron this year to date has been of the 90 fish caught approximately 38% were returned, with around 13% tagged. Below is a table of the anglers who have already adopted a precautionary approach and made a valuable contribution to the spawning effort this season...I would like to say thanks to these anglers for the contribution they have made to conserving stocks, and ask to keep it going, well done!.

But I won’t, because numbers and statistics can generally say what you want them to, depending on your point of view. We must not be lulled in to a false sense of security. The main thing we all need to agree on is that currently we don’t know enough to accurately measure or predict, so we must therefore adopt a precautionery approach and maximise numbers. We need to keep an open mind, and we should be receptive to any positive suggestion that helps maximise salmon numbers.

A lot of valuable time and resources have been used to support measures undertaken on rivers, to carry out studies and provide data, this is of course good, but is taking our ‘eye off the ball’. We become too specialised focusing on only one particular symptom getting to know everything about it without ever defining what's actually wrong 'The Illness'. Specialising distorts our view, this of course is not good because we may loose the patient. We need to focus on the cure.

I read once“When an animal is faced with a dilemma it can perform something which biologists call displacement activity – an apparently pointless ritual such as preening.” “Humans do exactly the same thing; faced with a dilemma people will walk to the mirror and comb their hair. Or they will start doing some other quite arbitrary activity whose real priority would be way down in any rational list”.

This paragraph was written when the Y2k season finished Carron had a good year 262 fish, the best since 1995. A total of 75 fish were returned with 25 floy tagged. A good start and a valuauble contribution to the spawning effort, but not to be considered as a substitute for a modest (virtual) hatchery. No instead to be seen as a part of package of measures, and as a supplement to a much bigger effort fingers crossed.

‘We tend to base almost all of our decisions about the future based on what we have learned from the past’. We need to gain a better understanding of the past, to help accurately predict or measure what is happening to wild Atlantic salmon.

Although not properly understood there seems to be a general concensus that the problem lies at sea we need more knowledge to help us tackle the problem, because unless or until we achieve this we will not be able to effectively manage this natural resource at a sustainable level. Only through immediate well-planned and co-ordinated intervention can we hope to rescue the wild Atlantic salmon before its numbers fall to the point of no return.

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