Severn salmon anglers meet with the Environment Agency to discuss catch and release.

The latest River Severn Report in Trout and Salmon magazine reported on the story that the Environment Agency appeared to be moving towards pushing for 100% compulsory catch and release. 

'Earlier this summer EA officers from Wales and the Midlands along with the Severn Rivers Trust met to discuss salmon stocks on the river Severn. No representatives of salmon anglers on the river attended this meeting. In fact none were invited! At this meeting a decision seems to have been made to demand that anglers return 90% of the salmon they catch, or face the imposition of 100% compulsory catch and release. The immediate target was to be what they see as ‘excessive’ levels of exploitation on the upper river.

Tony Bostock, Chief Executive of the Severn Rivers Trust, sent in this report of the meeting:

‘With compulsory catch & release now implemented on the Wye we are under growing pressure to increase voluntary catch & release in the Severn catchment and the Severn Rivers Trust have agreed with the EA promote a campaign to increase the catch & release of Salmon in the Severn catchment. We believe the warning is abundantly clear, if the catch & release of Salmon in the Severn catchment does not increase substantially compulsory catch & release will be introduced.’  

Salmon anglers were very surprised by this apparent change of direction and so an urgent meeting between the agency and salmon angling interests was organised.

This meeting took place last night and the outcome appears to have been very positive.

Charles Crundwell from the EA made it very clear that the EA are not talking about compulsory catch and release as an option and affirmed that their current analysis of salmon stocks would not justify it.

In turn the anglers present made it clear that they would seek to promote voluntary catch and release alongside the agency and put forward a number of proposals to that effect.

Perhaps the most important development however, was the formation yesterday of the Severn Salmon Anglers Conservation Association (SSACA) which is to be the representative body for salmon anglers within the Severn catchment. The SSACA was formed at a meeting attended by representatives of angling clubs and salmon fisheries from as high up river as Newtown in mid Wales to Tewkesbury on the tidal reaches. It already has the full support of the major salmon fisheries and clubs on the river including two of the biggest angling clubs in the world: the Birmingham Anglers Association and the Prince Albert Angling Society.  

The aims of the SSACA are:

To protect and conserve the Atlantic Salmon population of the River Severn

To promote the values of game angling

To provide a voice for salmon anglers in the management of the River Severn salmon fishery and to represent salmon angling interests in meetings and discussions with the Environment Agency.

At the meeting between the anglers and the EA, which was very ably chaired by Dan Kawczynski MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham and a PPS in DEFRA, it was agreed that in future the agency will meet with and consult the SSACA on matters relating to the salmon fishery.

The SSACA have elected an interim committee and officers.

I’ll publish a more detailed account of the meeting with the EA including minutes as they become available.

30lb Severn salmon

Here are a couple of pictures of Paul Harris's 30lb 8oz, 44 inch long salmon from the lower river.

This is now the front-runner to win the Shakespeare Oracle XT Severn Salmon competition for the biggest fish caught and returned from the river in 2012. A full report of the details surrounding the capture will appear in the next Severn report in Trout and Salmon magazine.

Industrial scale salmon netting ends in the Severn Estuary

Using powers given to them under the Marine Bill the Environment Agency have imposed quotas on the net and fixed engine fishery in the Severn Estuary.

This year the quotas have been set at thirty fish per putcher licence, two fish per seine net licence and three fish for each lave net licence. This effectively means the end of the industrial scale commercial salmon fishery in the estuary. There has been no compensation paid as part of this package.

What's particularly important about what's happened is that it has been achieved at a fraction of the cost to angling interests of some other buy-outs (for instance the buy-out of a smaller fishery in the estuary of the Welsh Dee cost a massive £350,000). This is ironic considering the furore created by internet pot stirrers and armchair conservationists over the £35,000 paid jointly by angling interests and the EA in 2010.

The option of allowing a limited heritage fishery to continue ensures equity between rods and nets and is preferable to a complete closure of the net fishery through state action. A spokesperson for the  EA Midland region explained to me that it is important to remember that it is the state of stocks in the Wye (as opposed to the Usk or Severn) that is the driver for the reductions. Therefore, the quotas have been calculated by the EA to recognise the reality of the mixed stock fishery and ensure that no more Wye salmon are taken by the estuary nets and fixed engines than would suffer post hooking mortality under a regime of 100% catch and release.

The Shropshire Spring

The good flows this spring have meant that for once anglers on the upper river have had the best of the sport.

Here are a few photos.

Ellis Brazier with a fish of 21lb 8oz

And another at 16lb

Allan Richards with a very fresh fish for the Shrewsbury area.

Al and Ellis have had a great season so far with all of their fish coming to Abu salmo seeker lures.

http://www.abugarcia-fishing.co.uk/catalogue/baits-lures,885/hard-baits,894/spinners,906/salmo-seeker,6812.html

The first fly caught fish of the season fell to Craig Chettwood and weighed 13lbs.

The second was caught by Steve Morris above Shrewsbury. His first ever on the fly.

Severn redd counts 1975-2004

I thought it might be interesting to look at the official EA redd counts on the Severn from 1975-2004. The picture this presents is of an increasing salmon population over the period as a whole (but with a peak in the early '90s). This is very much at odds with the views of many anglers who look at the long term decline in the total rod catch over the same period and have lived through the experience of massively reduced spring catches and therefore assume that the population has been declining.

The simplest explanation of how we can have two apparently contradictory measurements of the salmon population is that over the period more fish were entering the river either later in the season, or after the season had ended. This explanation would fit with broader trends on other UK salmon rivers over the same period. 

A stable population in numbers terms, but with a change in the balance of runs from earlier to later in the season, would drastically depress the rod catch by half at the very least. The reason for this is that early run fish are known as better takers and available to the rod fishery for longer, therefore a much higher proportion of them are landed compared to back end fish. 

The most comprehensive study of monthly catch rates of Salmon in a river  with different runs 

of salmon at different times of year was made in the 1990’s on the Welsh Dee, where there is a fish trap at 

Chester that allowed a substantial sample of  Salmon to be caught and tagged. The rates of capture of tagged 

fish by anglers upstream of the trap were: 

 MAR 39.4%

APR 38.2%

MAY 24.9%

 JUN 19.9%

JUL 21.7%

AUG 17.9%

SEP 10.8%

 OCT 5.5%  

 from which it can be seen that early running fish had much higher rates of capture than later run fish.  

Three other factors magnify the impact of the switch to later runs on the Severn rod catch.

1. The impact of the spring bye laws.  This makes it illegal to use bait before June 16th yet this was the method which historically accounted for the vast majority of fish from the middle and upper river. In 2007 the EA estimated that the fall in the mean spring catch of 157 since 1999 was not due to a reduced spring stock but down to the impact of the spring bye laws.  I.e. bait bans and reduced effort.Angling effort has fallen by roughly two thirds as a result of the bye laws.

2. The Severn season finishes earlier than 95% of salmon rivers in England and Wales. As the balance of runs has switched from spring to summer and autumn this has had a massive impact on the Severn rod catch. Rivers like the Tyne, Lune and Ribble catch a majority or close to that of their annual catch in October. 

3. The nature of the Severn means that in a normal year the vast majority of the summer and early autumn run stay out in the estuary or don't move far into the lower river.http://severnsalmon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/how-industry-shaped-severn-salmon-runs.html

If we look at all these factors in combination then the puzzle of the two sets of apparently contradictory data is solved.

 Many thanks to Tony Bostock of the Severn Rivers Trust for supplying me with this data.

2011 Severn salmon catch statistics

I've received the final data from the Environment Agency on the 2011 season.

The total declared salmon catch for 2011 stands at 361 of which 331 were reported from the Severn, 10 from the Teme and 20 from the Vyrnwy. This is the second highest catch from the system in the last 15 years.

The 2011 catch is a very significant improvement on 2009 and 2010 seasons which like last year also suffered from low flows in the spring . So what was different? Evidence from a wide range of sources suggest that 2011 was a good year for multi-sea-winter (MSW) salmon throughout the North Atlantic and the Severn clearly benefited from this.

The long term rod catch figures over the last 15 years are relatively stable showing a small upward trend.

However, these catch figures should not be taken at face value as an accurate measure of the long term trend in the salmon population. This is because they do not account for the impact the1999 spring byelaws had in reducing rod effort and the number of salmon caught.

The ban on bait fishing before June 16th effectively closed a substantial part of the Spring Salmon fishery on the Severn, while compulsory catch and release deterred many anglers who were unhappy with treating spring salmon as 'play things'. It is very difficult to quantify the impact of the byelaws, but in 2007 the EA noted that there had been a 58% fall in the median annual pre-June catch on the Severn in comparison to pre-byelaw days, but said that this was 'not significant' as it did not represent any fall in stocks: EA assessment of impact of spring bye laws on salmon catches

Put in layman's terms that means the Severn rod catch has been reduced by around 160 fish per year since 1999 as a result of the spring byelaws. More in good fishing years and less in poor ones.

The real state of stocks is seen more clearly if we look at the underlying trend in catch per unit effort which has improved significantly over the last 15 years.

The catch and release rate has risen to 61% which is above the long term England and Wales average of 56%. This was no doubt helped by awareness raising activities such as the Shakespeare Severn Salmon Competition in which a prize of a Shakespeare Oracle XT fly rod was offered for the largest salmon caught and released from the river.

Nearly two thirds 65% of the fish were caught after June 16th. Spinning was the most productive method (58%) with bait accounting for 34% and the fly 8%.

96 anglers caught Severn, Teme or Vyrnwy salmon last year. Of that just 15 anglers (less than 5% of the total number fishing) caught over 50% of the fish. Sixty anglers (15% of the total) caught 90% of the fish.

The catch breaks down in terms of weight category like this:

Under 8lb: 85

8lb - 14lb: 214

14lb - 22lb: 59

22lb and over: 6

The average and largest weights by river were:

Severn: average 10.55lb largest 30lb

Vyrnwy: average 10.6lb largest 15.6lb

Teme: average 9.48lb largest 13lb

Significantly no large salmon were declared from the Teme last year. This no doubt reflected the very low flows throughout virtually the whole season.

The proportion of large salmon over 14lbs in the rod catch had risen to 18% which represents a significant improvement on the previous 5 year average of 12%.

The monthly capture rate of large salmon is shown below. This could be evidence that large salmon are running later, but we would need the pattern to be repeated over several years and varied flows to establish that. It may well just be a reflection of the very dry April which delayed the arrival of the larger fish at the rod fishery.

2011 provisional catch figures

The provisional rod catch for 2011 stands at 332. This figure is based on returns up to mid February. It represents a significant improvement on catches in 2009 and 2010 which like last year suffered from low water. It would be a mistake to try and isolate a single cause for this upturn, but good catches of 2SW fish across much of England and Wales in 2011 suggests that the 2009 smolts may well have found favourable currents after the leaving the rivers. This could keep down marine mortality and boost rod catches.  

This catch is another indicator of improving stocks after the collapse in catches in the late '90s.

The 2011 catch was 180% of the 1998 figure. Yet since the late 90's the number of anglers has declined by more than two thirds. This suggests strongly that the stock is increasing. If we look at catch-per-unit-effort we can see the trend over the last decade or so more clearly.

Flows impact very strongly on the distribution of the rod catch with the navigation weirs on the lower river accounting for the majority of fish in low water years. This pattern was again evident in the 2011 catches. The lower river is a very long stretch of river, but the effective fishing area is made up mainly from a handful of weir pools. Over 65% of the fish reported from below Stourport actually came from just one such hotspot: Diglis weir at Worcester. 


Prior to 2009 the catch from below Bridgnorth would've been considerably higher in a drought year. However, changes of ownership at one particularly productive low water fishery has led   to a big reduction in catches. This is due to less rod effort and highly productive water remaining un-fished. 


The graph below represents fish reported to me for the T&S monthly report. It isn't exhaustive, but I believe it does give a broadly accurate picture.