Viking Lars | Saturday, 16 November 2024
The 2024-season for Atlantic salmon is good and well over and on many of the European mainland rivers it’s looking bad. Seriously bad!
From the southern most river in Denmark, to the rivers in the Baltic Sea and river far up into Norway, the runs have been severely low. One river on a low run is really of no concern, but when it’s across probably hundreds of rivers, one has to be deeply worried.
Many if the Norwegian rivers were closed totally, which in most ways is good. The problem is that on most of them, the only real way of knowing how many salmon are in the rivers is from the catches. There’s always fishing after the season has closed for mother fish in some rivers, but even that has shown very few fish in the rivers.
Although the number of grille is fair, it’s still low and one can only guess what kind of disaster has occurred, because it’s 2-3 generations of salmon that’s been it, something points to varying degrees.
In Denmark we have good knowledge about the numbers, because fishing was never closed. And yet, those numbers cause serious concerns. On River Skjern, an all time high a few years ago was at a staggering 1800 salmon caught. This year,
650-something. Something’s very wrong!
And it’s far at sea, because the run of sea trout has been good in the same rivers. One of our prime sea trout rivers has had the best season in decades, in fact.
From researchers the only probable cause is a long-term deviation in the Gulf Stream that has sent the fish on a detour so big that they never made it home. But that’s not the entire explanation, because salmon travel to different areas to feed in the sea.
Across Europe, some river owners are working well together with authorities to come up with plans to ensure good spawning rates. On other rivers (especially in Norway, as far as I’m told) the river owner’s “guilds” cannot really work together and the Norwegian authorities has just issued a press release that they will await suggestions for next year from the river owners. If the authorities aren’t happy with the proposals, they’ll force a solution through.
I think that is the river owners don’t decide on the traditional June 1st opening, but with 100% catch and release, the authorities might postpone the opening to July 1st. But we need to know as soon as possible what the runs are and the only way of knowing is to let us fish.
I sincerely hope for the usual opening date. And if deemed necessary then for a timely closing no- kill fishing. But we need to keep fishing, if nothing else then to know the numbers.
I hope!!!
Have a great weekend!
Lars
PoD: With no salmon on the rivers, one has to pass time in other ways.