Latest spate seems to have moved a few fish upriver with three reported yesterday.

Rectory 12lbs Gary Price
7lb the Rocks by Richard Thomas
 7lb from Lysdinam for Stephen Grimshaw.
LATEST
Another fish from the Rectory  10lbs   (30th fish of the season from the three beats -wow!!)
4 reported today from Glanwye 6 -71/2- 8 and 10lbs


Another river in the doldrums, The Spey?   However there are crisis and crisis- see the difference between the Spey and the Wye  reported by a friend following a recent visit to the Spey.

Also check the Spey report; 
https://www.speyfisheryboard.com/week-commencing-the-glorious-twelfth-2019/

The differences in two rivers in crisis.

  The first river is the Wye where there now appears to be no will to fix things except for an earlier excellent attempt by the WSA to create smolt release ponds. The early signs from these were that they appeared to be working as several fin clipped fish were caught. I personally caught a fin clipped fish of 10lbs and witnessed the capture of a 17lb fin clipped fish. (see below).

Who says hatcheries don’t work!

  This initiative was poo-pooed by WUF as they had all the answers to fix things such as more habitat restoration! During and after the initiative, the grilse catch on a lower beat I fish increased from about 5% to over 24%. This catch was made up with many fin clipped fish. Who says hatcheries don’t work!  

  This initiative was mainly funded by the Wye anglers who wanted to do all they could in the recovery of the Wye by taking a different route to habitat restoration. They financed all the materials and labour needed to create these smolt release ponds, which now thanks to WUF’s and NRW indifference stand neglected and unused, that once appeared to show their early potential.

  In the mean time, the catches on the Wye have collapsed completely this year so more than habitat restoration needs to be done!

  The second river in crisis is the river Spey which one is told is also in crisis as the catches have fallen over the last few years. Last year was to be expected due to the long hot summer with no rain which affected most rivers including the Wye.

  What have the Spey Board done about this? The first was to eliminate all the fish eating birds that ate the parr and smolts. The second thing was to re-activate the hatchery and stock the head waters where salmon cannot spawn due to natural barriers with over a million fry/year. Wherever you fish now on the river Spey, you can’t stop catching salmon parr, even on the lowest beats. They are all around you as you fish down a pool. They are everywhere. When was the last time I caught a parr on a middle beat or lower beat? It was probably during the mid nineties!

  The differences in the two rivers is huge. The Spey Board listen to and act upon what the anglers and ghillies say. The people who control the Wye such as NRW and WUF do not do this as they think they know better!

  I have just come back from six days fishing some lower beats on the Spey with four friends where I have never seen so many Atlantic salmon in all my life. These beats combined catch was 184 salmon and grilse for the week and not including sea trout over a stretch of 7 miles. My party of five rods were lucky enough to catch 43 salmon and grilse up to 16lbs and 3 sea trout up to 4lbs. We were by no means the top scoring group of fishers as another party of five fishers had around 70 grilse and salmon for their six days!

  Putting this into perspective; over the same period of time and over its entire length of some 160 odd miles, the Wye produced just 10 reported fish!

These Spey beats produced 70% of the entire Wye’s present season total in just six days and the river is supposed to be in crisis!   

  Gone seem to be the days where on a good day my syndicate could catch up to 12 fish a day on the lower beat we fish. For myself the Wye has now become a “practice” river where I go to practice my Spey casting, as at present there appears to be little or no chance of catching a fish as they don’t seem to exist anymore!

Peter Hickman