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Gleanings From Old Fishing Magazines
A collection of old magazines reveals a cornucopia of useful information
Looking through cupboards the other day I came across my collection of angling magazines dating back to the early 1960's. I have been meaning to dig them out for ages with the intention of doing a series of articles based on the old angling reports contained in the magazines, a vast collection of useful and informative data.
Here is the first dip into the past, it will surprise you, inform you and prove that history repeats it's self all too often. Take the Trout and Salmon report from Rogie on Loch Maree for September 1974. The sea trout fishing started in July and the fishing was considered quite good. The Loch Maree Hotel boats had 25 fish for 65.5lbs in the first week, 57 for 157lbs in week two, 103 for 247lb in week 3 and 66 for 146lbs in week four with the biggest fish being two 7.5 pounders. Quite good indeed and how sad to relate that this once famed sea trout fishery is all but devoid of fish, which off course has nothing to do with the intense salmon farming in the area, pure coincidence, nowt to do with them, at all, never.
Coincidence is something that brings back long buried memories. As a lad I dreamed of fishing for the Scotland team but I never did get into competitive fishing, I never realised that dream. The first magazine I picked up, September 1974, opened to the announcement of the Scotland team for the International on Llyn Trawsfyndd and there before my very eyes was the name Leslie Hutcheson, my old school class mate and boyhood fishing buddy. Les achieved what I had dreamed of and even today I still experience a little envy that time has not healed. Still, well done Les, hope you are well and fishing as hard as ever.
While fishing on the Grantown Association Water below Broomhill Bridge on the Spey I often wondered how so many cast iron bath tubs got into the river. Had there been a disastrous bath tub race in years gone by, a mass sinking. Now I know the answer, the club had the bath tubs planted in the river to create salmon lies in what is quite slow flowing water, planted by helicopter! Can you imagine trying that today, Scottish Natural Heritage would have kittens.
Rod and Line, September 1965, relates well to how we approach salmon and sea trout fishing today;
'It is obvious that the run of sea trout is gradually being exterminated by excessive netting and the future of salmon stocks is uncertain, so I think it is time all anglers started to train themselves to take only as many as they require instead of killing for killing's sake or to impress their friends by numbers of fish.'
That comment came during a time of plenty. 44 years later with the nets bought off, stocks ravaged by UDN, off shore netting, salmon farming and global warming we have at last seen reason and most anglers show restraint although there are still some selfish mega pratts out there, let us hope we haven't woken up too late.
The July 1969 edition of Rod and Line contained a Fishery Activity report on the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board for the previous year which detailed the numbers of fish going through the various Fish Passes on their dams. The famous Pitlochry pass recorded 4365 salmon and 447 grilse. As of the 24th on September this year the number of salmon recorded stands at 3605, an interesting result which suggests that the number of fish passing through the dam is consistent now with the numbers recorded during the more prolific 1960's, or does it?
FRS statistic point out that over 600,000 fish were caught annually in the late 1960s by all methods compared with 95,000 in recent years. Clearly the the buy out of netting stations has had a massive impact on the numbers of fish being caught with only 38%, about 36500, of the 194 tonnes of fish caught in 2006 being taken by nets. You don't have to be a statistician to work out that the numbers of fish running today is about the same as in the 1960's nor to see that there are half a million fewer fish entering our rivers nowadays. Kind of puts the present crisis into perspective.
An article on Loch Leven in Trout and Salmon in March 1976 tells that throughout the summer of 1975 all 40 boats were booked out in advance and that 26,482 fish weighing in at 42,502lbs, just over a pound and a half average, were caught. The best boat caught 33 fish for 66lbs. Today sadly this world famous fishery supports just a handful of boats, not because the fishery is poor, hell no, the fish are there and the quality of the fish is as good as ever. The fishery is suffering because too many anglers expect to catch bag limits of fat rainbows. Loch Leven is wild fishing with no guarantees that the fish will take. Sad isn't it, that catching bag limits is more important than the joy of bobbing about on a beautiful loch never knowing what you are gong to encounter.
Finally for this article at least a look at some prices brings a few surprises. In 1976 you could buy a Hardy Palakona outfit, including a Princess reel and an Air Cel or Wet Cel line and backing, for just £77. An 8ft Shakespeare graphite rod would set you back £56 compared with a Hardy 8 footer at £58.68, Hardy and Shakespeare in the same price band, ooh how times have changed. A Hardy Marquis would set you back £13/14, wow, costs about £200 nowadays. Glad I bought mine way back then, and I am still using.
You could have a day on the Tummel below the the dam at Pitlochry for £7 (£25 to £55 today); a day on Avington Fishery for £8.20 (£60 today); a one day fly fishing course for £7.
Roy Darlington was offering a season ticket at Abbots Barton on the Itchen, where Skues and Halford developed many of the tactics we employ today, for £75 to £300. Sadly it was announced in the Times just yesterday, 26th September, that Roy and his business partners Stewart Newell have given up the lease after 35 years because the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Trust who own the land have decided to take a heritage Lottery Fund grant of £983000 to let the river silt and weed up to create wetland for wading birds. What a coincidence that I should pick that bit of information at random and the Times has an article about it just yesterday.
Ta ta for now, I'm off to browse a little more for my next delve into the past. Next instalment coming soon unless I get too engrossed and start to reread all of the magazines, over 40 years worth!
