Well another season has been and gone and most will remember it but for vastly different reasons I guess.

We may yet see a few more fish to the total which although not the worst is certainly in the worst half dozen.   Due to Covid I suspect there will be no WUF Annual meeting this autumn which is perhaps just as well.  Only ever missed one and have to admit came away from pretty much all of them feeling somewhat bewildered and disappointed at what we had been told - well lectured at is really  the right word.

All the claims being made were not being related on the ground to those of us who were on the river every day, week in week out. To be generous it was mostly a P.R exercise which bouyed up those who knew no better and believed every word as if it were gospel.   It's true some good things may have been done but they did not bring the rewards they were claimed to provide and where we are now is evidence of that.

I often wonder just what part the trustees actually play in this Foundation scenario.  Do they ask questions,or even question the information that's being put out or do they just rubber stamp the decision the directors give. If so then they are as gullible as the rest and must at the end of the day share much of the flack.   Oh and don't forget the Wye Conservators, that strange shadowy body in the background that keeps a low profile and does -what exactly.   Well it's supposed to represent the interests of the Wye Owners, a job done in the past by the Wye Fishery Owners Association which was lead into oblivion and is  no longer an independent body which at one time had real clout, to become just an arm of WUF with the same people running it.   Many old Wye Salmon members will be looking down in dismay at what it has now become.

In the meantime we can only hope that The Wye Salmon Association continues to grow, That WUF and NRW and WAG too engage with it and seek a new way forward in cooperation to do the things that are necessary to revive this great river.  Hope as they say springs eternal but is not always realised. We shall have to wait and see.

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On a different note I read somewhere over the weekend that Scottish salmon farmers have admitted the death, through disease of up to 10 million salmon on their disgusting cages in the last 18months.  What a disgrace.