Salmon catch at record low

LAST YEAR's catch of spring-run salmon in England and Wales was the worst on record, the Environment Agency revealed yesterday.

The figures confirm the spiralling decline of the species and indicate that wild salmon stocks are at critically low levels.

The agency said they justify the controversial catch-and-release bylaws brought in this month, which for the first half of the season stop all netting in England and Wales, and compel anglers to return all fish alive to the water.

In the season up to 1 June 1998, English and Welsh anglers reported taking only 758 fish, compared to 1,381 in 1997 and 2,691 in 1996. Catches by netsmen suffered a similar decline, with only 832 fish taken in the 1998 early season, compared to 1,528 in 1997 and 2,913 in 1996.

In 1989 the rod catch in the season to June was 3,199 fish, with 4,742 taken in nets.

On individual rivers the decline over the last two decades has been catastrophic. In 1978, early-season anglers on the Severn took 718 fish; last year they took 76. On the Wye, 20 years ago the corresponding catch was 3,684; last year it was 78.

Dr David Clarke, the agency's head of fisheries, said the figures were a clear sign the new regulations are needed. `The shortage of larger salmon, especially those running early in the year, reinforces the need for the bylaws that came into force on 15 April," he said.

But the new restrictions have been controversial. On the Severn and Wye they have halted use of a fishing trap used since Saxon times, the putcher, once made of willow branches but now often made of steel.

John Walters, a putcher fisherman on the Severn whose season has been shortened by six weeks, said the agency was depriving him of his livelihood. "I'm unhappy about it," he said. "They say the stocks are bad but that's not what we say."