As close to fishing porn as TV might get

I HAVE nothing against Robson Green personally. As an actor he has turned in some compelling performances in the likes of Casualty, Soldier, Soldier and Wire in the Blood. He certainly generates a quickening of pulses among the ladies apparently, though clearly the lad from Dudley on Tyneside maybe falls short of setting up any serious challenge to Swooney Clooney.

Extreme Fishing: 'crass concept'

But as the central star of Extreme Fishing, the Channel 5 series, I fear for his future. Worse, I have some serious concerns for the public’s perception of the hitherto-gentle art of angling when the latest series of the programme is finished.

Last night we were treated to episode three of this hour-long weekly self-indulgence with Green enjoying some of the ‘totally unique’ fishing which China has to offer. On the strength of his cartoon-style adventures I suspect the angling holiday travel trade will have some remedial work to do.

This is not so much extreme as Inane Fishing. This is Bizarre Fishing. This looks very much like Peer into the Bottom of the Ideas Barrel and See What Turns Up Fishing. The image of Robson Green singing Blaydon Races – quite well, it has to be admitted – from the doorstep of a tour bus to a captive and clearly bewildered audience queueing for a ferry somewhere in deepest China, was for me, the angling highlight of the evening.

It took all of 50 minutes of the latest programme before a fishing rod made an appearance on screen. Before that we had Green wrestling with miles of net and a squad of commercial fishermen for huge Big Headed Carp; Green up to his oxters in estuarial mud delving for tiny octopus with a lone commercial fisher; Green at sea with a commercial long-liner for eels; Green joining the well-documented cormorant fishers of the Langhu River and throwing reluctant birds neck first into the water to fish for [very small] catfish.

Extreme indeed. Yes, but the most extreme bits only became evident when something was eventually caught. Those generated Green hysteria – much shouting, lots of arm waving, a fair amount of swearing, some choreographed Extreme Fishing dance routines, several eat-all-you-can Chinese banquets and copious quantities of rice wine.

The only part of this dismal, sad production, which struggled to qualify as fishing entertainment, centred round his participation in an allegedly international sea angling competition in the East China Sea where he was partnered with an enthusiastic local. And yes, rods were actually filmed in use.

The target was Black Sea Bream which were unceremoniously yanked out of the water, dumped writhing on the rocks and then admired in close-up by Green who displayed all the trouser-wetting excitement of a 10-year-old who had just landed his first dace. He finished 39th out of 102 – cue more hysteria.

The problem I have with all of this is not searching out and filming fishing in remote and wonderful lands, or some of the more extraordinary practices humans get up to in pursuit of a catch – whether for sport or, as last night, mostly just trying to earn a meagre living.

No, my problem is the crassness of a concept which reduces everything about fishing to the level of the extremely banal.  Nothing which cannot be reduced to a reaction level of ‘awesome’, ‘amazing’, or ‘astonishing’ – each preferably preceded by an expletive – is acceptable.

Nothing so mundane as a passing concern for the well-being or long-term future of one of our greatest natural resources is allowed to intrude on what passes for entertainment. If Robson Green has a subtle bone in his body it is about as well hidden as an octopus’ skeleton.

This is a close to fishing porn as TV may get. The reality of fishing as you, I and almost everyone else knows – or more importantly deserves to know, but will never learn from this programme – is that there is very little about it which is ‘extreme’: not climate, not species large or species small, not tackle and most definitely not tactics.

Only the fragile future of many of our fishy species and their habitats is extreme.  That, and the programme ideas factory at Channel 5.

 

River Dee ‘in good spirits’ for another bumper year

ACTOR and comedian Billy Connolly today formally opened the Aberdeenshire Dee’s salmon season where fishery administrators are optimistic that rod catches will maintain 2009’s record-breaking results.

Billy Connolly toasts the River Dee 2010 opening

Connolly, who began his interest in fishing as a youngster on the canal in Glasgow, and now owns Candacraig House in Strathdon, toasted the river with a tipple of Scotland’s other national drink. He’s teetotal.

Around 100 guests on the bankside at Milton of Crathes, however, were able to sample a single malt whisky, Dalmore Dee Dram, developed to help support restoration projects on the famous river.

River Dee angling generates about £12 million annually in revenues and supports an estimated 500 rural jobs. Mark Bilsby, director of the river’s District Salmon Fishery Board, said:

“The Dee enters 2010 in good spirits . . . overall rod catches of salmon and grilse in 2009 were the highest for 20 years and this excludes catches during the experiment to extend the season in October.” The wet summer also helped boost returns of sea trout to their highest levels in a decade.

All proceeds from the sale of the special whisky will go the the River Dee Trust which has played a leading role in restoring the river’s migratory fish stocks.

It will provide much-needed additional support for practical projects such as the construction of a fish-pass to enable migrating fish to reach the Culter Burn – the river’s second largest tributary – which has been blocked for 200 years by a dam. The burn offers 125 km of potential spawning grounds and juvenile habitat.

Bilsby added: “We are moving foward on a range of fronts to improve the habitat of both the main river and its tributaries in order to maximise juvenile fish numbers. The Upper Dee Riparian Woodland Scheme is a prime example, where we intend to plant native trees to combat the local impacts of climate change.”

 

S&TA calls for drastic cuts in salmon farm lice levels

Sea lice pose a threat to young migrating salmon stocks

THE Scottish Government was today urged to act rapidly to forestall severe increases in sea lice infestation expected to hit marine salmon farms in the West Highlands and islands.

Fears also emerged that Scotland could become a “dumping ground’’ for bad practice by multinational salmon producers if our parasite control regulations were not harmonised with other major north Atlantic countries, like Norway.

The Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA), the UK’s main game fishing conservation charity, urged politicians and scientists to follow the lead set recently by Norway and introduce much more rigorous controls on parasite levels for the Scottish salmon farming industry.

The S&TA, whose patron is Prince Charles, wants to see the numbers of permitted sea lice in marine farm pens cut by 80% and launched a withering attack on the salmon farming industry’s code of practice which it described as “a nebulous and toothless document which has no legal status.”

Huge increases in sea lice – widely accepted to be a major contributor to declines in wild salmon stocks in recent years – were identified in Norwegian fish farms last autumn, and prompted the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries to impose dramatic new controls on infestation levels this year.

These decree that lice in marine salmon pens must not exceed 0.1 per fish, or one louse for every ten salmon. According to the S&TA, the Scottish salmon farming industry target for sea lice this spring is five lice for every ten salmon.

Paul Knight: 'stark contrast'

Paul Knight, executive director of the S&TA, said the Norwegians’ action was an indication of how seriously they as a nation took the sea lice issue. “This is in stark contrast to the situation in Scotland where the salmon farming industry will be allowed to operate with five times as many lice per salmon cage compared with what is permissible in Norway.”

Jon Gibb, clerk to Lochaber District Salmon Fishery Board which is responsible for wild fish stocks in a region with one of the highest concentration of Scotland’s fish farms, issued a stern warning that levels of 0.5 per fish were “far too high” to prevent a devastating impact on young migrating wild fish.

He said: “Now that the Norwegian authorities are implementing a far tougher regime, surely it is time for the Scottish Government to follow suit. If it does not, the increasingly Scotland will be open to the charge that it is the dumping ground for bad practice by the Norwegian companies that operate multinationally.”

The Association of District Salmon Fishery Boards, which administers the majority of Scotland’s salmon fisheries was not available for comment yesterday.  But it is known that there is a widespread sense of frustration among game fish interests about the slow speed of action by Scottish authorities.

Sea lice have become resistant to the most commonly-used of the chemical treatments called SLICE and infestation levels erupted in Norway last autumn.  Gibb said: “What we have seen happen in Norway, you can predict with certainty, will happen here. We have still got a little time if we act now, to be ahead of the game rather than face having to take retrograde action.”

He said there was no wish to disrupt salmon production or put industry jobs at risk, but indigenous stocks had to be protected.

The Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation had virtually nothing to say about the issue today. Its technical director, John Webster merely noted that the Scottish and Norwegian marine environments and other circumstances were “very different.”

“Accordingly, appropriate rules are applied to fit the conditions,” he said.

The Government, meanwhile, displayed no sign it was prepared to rush into any action. A spokesman said:

“A main focus of the Scottish Government’s aquaculture strategy is to study sea-lice and develop a national system for the collection of sea-lice data along with a strategy for effective control. The group will make its recommendations to the Minister for Environment in March 2010.”

The officlal pointed out that Scotland and Norway last year signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at safe-guarding and developing the multimillion pound aquaculture industry throughy the sharing of research and information. A joint committee on bilateral aquaculture co-operation will hold its first meeting in Scotland later this year.

The Government says out that the Healthier Fish Working Group – made up of cross-industry interests – has already explored –

• Introducing threshold levels which would be used to notify Marine Scotland of concerns regarding sea lice levels and mortality levels
• Ensuring single year class stocking, fallowing and synchronous lice treatments, within management areas which are of appropriate scale from a disease and parasite control perspective,  underpinned by strong Area Management Agreements
• Introducing statutory reporting requirements for the suspicion of sea lice resistance to therapeutants

The S&TA’s Knight, however, argued that it was “inequitable that the sea lice limits laid down in Norway are enforceable by law whilst in Scotland the salmon farmers set their own limits under the industry’s Code of Good Practice, a nebulous and toothless document which has no legal status.”

He continued: “It is surely time for the Scottish Government to introduce statutory limits for sea lice in salmon cages so that the Norwegian companies operating here are obliged to adhere to similar environmental standards and regulations as are in force across the North Sea.

“If we are to have any hope of restoring runs of wild salmon and sea trout in the west Highlands, then a prerequisite is proper regulation of the salmon farming industry including where necessary the sanction of slaughter of the stock in those farms that do not comply”.

 

Board strengthens Tay catch-and-release measures

SOME OF the most stringent salmon conservation measures ever seen in Scotland are being introduced on the River Tay this season.

The recommendations from Tay District Salmon Fisheries Board, guardian of the river’s precious stocks, will mean:

• No hen fish to be killed at any time
• No fish to be killed before June
• One clean cock fish only to be killed per angler per day – weight not to exceed 10 lbs.
• Beat owners being asked to make the measures a condition of let.

Speaking today in advance of the opening of the Tay 2010 season on Friday, William Jack, chairman of TDSFB, said:

“Over the last few years there has been a very substantial increase in the number of salmon being released safely back into the water by anglers, for which the Board is most grateful.

“However, we are mindful of the precautionary principle and believe that the Tay’s catch-and-release codes needs to be strengthened yet further.”

The move follows mounting concerns about dwindling North Atlantic salmon stocks, despite cut-backs in commercial netting operations and heightened conservation policies in most Scottish fisheries.  Scientists fear that climate change factors are affecting the location and abundance of the food chain on which salmon depend.

Scottish Finance Minister, John Swinney, will open the 2010 Tay salmon season

Jack warned that marine survival of salmon are now just 5% compared with up to 30% 30 to 40 years ago. Last year the river experienced poor spring and grilse runs.

Official Government statistics for 2008 show the reported number of salmon killed by all methods fell to 48,481 compared with 55,478 the previous year. Some 15,660 were taken at netting stations. Catch-and-release by anglers was up 1% to 62%.

Catches of sea trout fell by 15% to 22,785 compared with the previous 12 months. The two-year decline was 20%.

John Swinney, MSP for North Tayside and SNP finance minister will formally open the Tay season at Dunkeld as part of a day of events on the middle river. Anglers will be competing for the Redford Trophy awarded for the biggest fish caught on the main river on opening day.

 

River Lochy salmon takes Malloch Trophy

Sandy Walker, 2009 Savills Malloch Trophy winner, sporting some unconventional fly-fishing attire, prepares to return his prize 32lb salmon

THE WINNER of this year’s prestigious Savills Malloch Trophy is Fort William angler Sandy Walker with a 32lb sea-liced cock salmon taken on the River Lochy in late June.

The veteran Inverlochy AC member caught the fish in the river’s tidal Tailrace pool on a home-tied Waddington. It took him 1.5 hrs to land and safely return to the water.

Walker said today: ““I am greatly honoured to have won the legendary trophy. The award is testimony to the continuing recovery of the Lochy as one of the great west coast salmon rivers.”

He praised fishery manager Jon Gibb for his work in helping restore the river to former glory. Gibb, who witnessed the catch was quoted at the time as saying: “It looked all of its 32lbs and was probably the most stunning fish I have seen landed from the river.”

The prestigious Malloch Trophy

The Savills Malloch Trophy committee considered possible contenders from rivers including the Spey and Tweed before endorsing Walker as the 2009 winner. His name will be engraved on the trophy, joining an illustrious list stretching back four decades. He will also receive a special silver sculpture of a salmon, commissioned by Savills from the artist Patrick Mavros, and a £250 voucher from the House of Bruar.

Walker will be a guest at the River Tay Dinner next June where he will receive the trophy, named after the Perth-based fishing tackle manufacturer.

The silver trophy was first awarded in 1972 for a 43lb fish caught on the Tweed by Lady Burnett. During a run of 28 consecutive years it became one of the most keenly contested angling prizes in Scotland.

After a gap of ten years during which no awards were made, the Tay Foundation was able to acquire it and this year entered a three year partnership with property specialists Savills to relaunch the award with the aim of promoting voluntary catch and release programmes, and the conservation of large salmon in particular, on all Scottish rivers.

 

Garry Dog – at last, the fly-tier revealed!

IT DIDNT take too long since my last article, to track down the elusive fly-tyer credited with creating one of Scotland’s most famous salmon patterns, the Garry Dog.

Also known as the Minister’s Dog, Yellow Dog or simply Garry, a chance meeting with the grandson of a Borders’ minister, brought me the background to the creation of this celebrated fly. And even a picture of Garry, the dog, whose hair was snipped off for the very first version.

Garry Dog - as tied in the 1950s

But the identity of the creator still remained a mystery. Until today, when we can reveal that the Garry Dog was first tied in the Tweedside town of Kelso by local tackle dealer, John Wright, during the 1920s.

Colin Martin, grandson of the Rev Denholm Fraser, the Sprouston minister from 1903 to the late 1930s, who still has a picture of Garry, the dog, couldn’t remember the name of the fly dresser, but canvassed members of his family to gather the information.

According to Colin, Wright’s father James, another fly-tyer of note, was credited with creating the Durham Ranger, although some sources claim this was the work of Walton Scruton, a Durham man, but member of the Sprouston angling club in 1845. It is also attributed to another club member, William Henderson.

Now we know.

Addendum: John Gray of Gray’s of Kilsyth points out that James Wright was the creator of one of the most popular flies of all time – Greenwell’s Glory, first dressed in 1854 for Canon William Greenwell, of Durham.  Thanks, John.

 

Revealed: The real story of Garry, the minister’s dog

REVEALED: Garry, the real origin of that famous fly with his owner's daughter in the 1920s

FLY PATTERNS  are a great source of controversy whether it be over hook sizes or the huge range of materials and colours available to the tyer. Occasionally too there is debate about the origins of a fly and especially its creator.

It’s entertaining from time to time to browse the wealth of online fly-tying resources around the world and marvel at the disparity in sizes, dressings and histories which can be attached to a single pattern.

Take the Garry Dog, for instance. One of Scotland’s best known salmon flies, with a long history and an equally lengthy track-record of success, to this day. It nestles in countless fly boxes under the name of “Garry”, “The Dog”, “Yellow Dog” and “Minister’s Dog” in single, treble and tube formats.

It was the source of an interesting exchange of views on flyforums.co.uk last year when a Canadian fly-dresser presented her version of the fly in a livery which said much about North American dress style but little about historical record.

The Minister's Dog - owned by the minister's daughter around 50 years ago

The Garry Dog was the very first salmon fly I ever used and I thrashed the Tweed with it one November many years ago, but without success. I was told, as I suppose were many others, that it originated in Inverness-shire on the river which gives it its name.

But a chance discussion at a dinner in Perthshire last weekend laid to rest any doubts about that famous sparse yellow, black and red fly, a dog, and a minister – and just where it first took wing.

I found myself in the company of a man with documentary evidence of the very dog in question. Colin Martin is Kelso-born marine archaeologist of world renown. His grandfather Denholm Fraser was the minister at Sprouston, just outside Kelso from 1903 to the late 1930s.

The Rev. Fraser wasn’t an angler. But he was a kenspeckle figure in the Borders and would keep in touch with his flock, strolling the town with his dog Garry, and calling in on the local shopkeepers.

Garry Dog - contemporary Scottish dressing

Unfortunately, Colin can’t recall the name of the tackle shop where his grandfather would stop to pass the time of day, but he does remember being told how the owner, a keen fly-tyer, bent to snip a few hairs from the energetic cross-Retriever to add to something that he was working on at the vice.

Colin recalls: “Garry, the dog, didn’t come from Glen Garry, but the family used to go there for holidays. My grandfather was by origin a Highlander, so I suspect that was the reason for the dog’s name.

“In the early days the fly was simply called ‘Garry” or ‘The minister’s dog’.”

So the Garry Dog was born on the banks of the Tweed in Kelso in the 1920s, the product – as the redoubtable John Gray of Kilsyth correctly records – of the minister’s pet and a knowledgeable tyer. But who was he?

Colin is trying to find out the name of the shop and its owner from a relative, but if anyone has any ideas, we may yet know before a century is out, the name of the man who actually created one of Scotland’s best-known and still-successful patterns.

 

‘Every other fish on your plate was stolen – from you’

IF YOU weren’t watching More4 at 10:00 tonight you missed a real treat – the first UK television screening of The End of the Line, Rupert Murray’s remarkable documentary film which is changing the way people think about the future of the world’s sea fish populations.

Mitsubishi controls 60% of Atlantic bluefin tuna production

Immensely watchable; immensely frightening, it charts the activities of humans around the planet which, unrestrained, will – WILL, not maybe will – result in the extinction of the fish we eat by the middle of the century.

Leaving what? Just mud and worms, and maybe jellyfish burgers, according to Prof Callum Roberts, author of the sea conservation ‘bible’ The Unnatural History of the Sea.

Among the many disturbing soundbites the file delivers are:

• 1.2 billion in the world depend on fish for their diet.
• Mitsubishi is in control of 60% of the entire tuna production of the Atlantic.
• Five kilos of anchovies turned into fishmeal, generates one kilo of salmon.
• 7 million tons 1/10th of the world’s catch goes back over the side every year.
• Every other fish on your plate was stolen – stolen from you.

Who is acting to stop us reaching the end of the line? Our vacillating Government? The bureaucratic posturing of the EU? Other world governments? Deep sea trawlermen? Er, apparently not.

Us, the recreational anglers? Yes, by encouraging the proliferation of marine reserves from their present 0.6% of the oceans to 20-30%.

Us the consumers? Certainly. To start, we need to know where the fish on our table comes from; how it was caught. And if it’s not sustainable we need to stop eating it.

If there was an orang-utan or panda steak on the menu on your next night out, would you eat it?

Catch the film as soon as you can.

 

Sea angling strategy group makes progress

ENVIRONMENT minister Richard Lochhead has won cautious praise for following up quickly on his pledge to create a Scottish sea angling strategy group.

Richard Lochhead, left, launches the economic report in July with Ian Burrett of SSACN

Steve Bastiman, chairman of the Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network (SSACN), the principal campaigners for Government action to protect and revitalise inshore fish stocks, revealed today that it has had a preliminary to get the group underway.

Bastiman said tonight:

“The initial meeting was very informal, but at the moment we are very encouraged by the progress that’s being made towards getting a strategy group in place.” A further meeting later this month is planned to begin creation of the strategy itself.

A Government-sponsored report published in July put the value of recreational sea angling to the Scottish economy, at £140m a year. Fishing off the Mull of Galloway to launch the report, Lochhead announced the creation of a group to help create a development strategy for the sport.

SSACN says its objectives will, in no specific order:

• identify how aspects of the Marine Bill/Marine Park legislation may impact sea angling
• ensure the future of those stocks of interest to sea anglers
• identify key elements that are going to play a significant part in the future of sea angling
• determine the processes by which sea angling can contribute to the wider marine strategies
• ensure stock management frameworks adequately reflect the needs of the sea angling sector
• ensure sea angling opportunities are not artificially restricted.
• identify activities by which we can increase the awareness and understanding of sea angling
• increase opportunities for the socially and physically disadvantaged

Bastiman wants anglers to comment on these topics to ensure they have captured the key issues. Comment here, or email SSACN at contact@ssacn.org

Related Stories:

Pollack politics on the Mull

Lochhead pledges strategy . . .

 

Not Exactly Fishing’s Top 10 reads

NOT ALL fishing books are about the mechanics of it all. Sure we all need to have insights into the seemingly infinite permutations of rod, line, hooks, bait, wind and wave which make the gentle art of angling so absorbing.  Unquestionably I would have been less of an angler without the wisdom gleaned from Sawyer and and Skues and repeated calls to reference works by Goddard and Headley.

But while a Silverstone grand prix would be nothing without a wheel change specialist, motorsport is something more than the sum of its parts.  And so it is with fishing.  And those who can capture even a fraction of its mysteries, its place in life’s big jigsaw, with a few well chosen words, deserve all my praise.

So in the spirit of Not Exactly Fishing, here are my Top 10 reads. Without going into a review, McGuane, who has a list of worthy fishing books the length of your rod behind him, wins it with this one. For the simple reason that it seems to touch the very soul of fishing.”

If there is demand, I’ll set up a little poll to see where reader’s own thoughts lie. Meantime, it might provide some ideas for Christmas.

1. The Longest Silence, Thomas McGuane


'Touches the soul of angling'

2. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
3. Hooked, Fen Montaigne
4. The Loch Fisher’s Bible, Stan Headley
5. Nymphs and the Trout, Frank Sawyer
6. Fools Paradise, John Gierach
7. In Visible Waters, John Bailey
8. A Jerk on One End, Robert Hughes
9. Trout Flies of Stillwater, John Goddard
10. The Trout and I, Jon Beer

And Five that didn’t make it . . .

1. Trout Madness, Robert Traver
2. Fishing in Utopia, Andrew Brown
3. Dark Waters, Russell Chatham
4. The Habit of Rivers, Ted Leeson
5. My Secret Fishing Life Nick Lyons