John Walters kicked off for the month with a beautiful 16lb spWith a small run of sea trout and a few good salmon in April, May looked promising . David Laidler was among the sport in the early part of the month, with a brace of fresh sea trout to 2 1/2lbs from cauldron beat ,both caught on Invicta. Jackie Allan landed a similar sea trout from Canonbie Beat. Unfortunately we then endured the driest May on record. This coupled with cold winds from the East mean't that sea trout held off ,with no significant numbers showing in either the rivers or the inner Solway.
Drought conditions really bit hard and toward the month end, it was possible to cross the neck of the Willow pool ( which is on the main stem of the catchment) in a pair of wellingtons. Stones and boulders were bleached white in colour. The rain which deluged the south of the kingdom barely touched the Scottish Borders at all.
Fishery manager, Iain Bell has asked me to remind anglers fishing Esk & Liddle Fishery waters about the conservation measures to optimise on the future reproduction of sea trout. All sea trout over 3lbs weight are to be returned to the water with the minimum harm possible and there is also a bag limit of 2 sea trout maximum a day. The vast majority of large sea trout are hens. A school sized sea trout hen will only lay about 700 to 1000 eggs at spawning time. A double figure sea trout would provide 10,000 or more eggs of a durable genetic type.
Iain is pleased to report that the Solway Firth is now to be included in a major effort to secure the best possible future for this prince of fish and will form part of the Celtic Sea Trout Project, linking Solway rivers with Irish and Welsh bodies in a joint effort at establishing facts about the marine stage of the fishes life cycle ,its protection and enhancement.
Sampling of sea trout scales and DNA from the tidal Solway should be underway by June and also marine temperature monitoring will establish if and when any dangerous heat peaks occur to deter fish entering esturine waters. The significant increase in numbers of shoaling Bass in the Firth are also being looked at to establish how much of their food predation is made up from sea trout or salmon smolts.
Those participating in the project include Buccleuch Estates, Esk and liddle Improvement association, Environment Agency, Galloway Fisheries Trust, Annan District and Nith District Fishery Boards, together with Solway Haaf net and stakenet operators. The research operation will be brought together for study by the School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University , under Dr. Nigel Milner.
River monitoring introduced over a year ago is being continued and extended, with extra temperature probes fixed in upper catchment spawning burns during the last week in may. Iain said during these jobs, he was encouraged to see numbers of this years sea trout fry in the low water and plenty of invertebrate life to feed on. Notably some of the burns carried stocks of fresh water limpet,(Ancylus) which will only tolerate pure water.
Good tides are due for the first weekof June and given heat and a little water we should see fresh sea trout arrive in greater numbers.
May 2008 Report
