Pretty good conditions on the upper river now reflected in some catches mostly Hay to Erwood.

Two from the Rectory for  10 and 8  (to a local angler/)  Whats that all about I wonder!
also a fish of 12lbs to RobertWheatcroft.
Two from Spreadeagle for Andrew Spittle 5 and 12lbs
|Caemawr 4lb grilse for Ricky Reno
Wyesham  15lbs to Joe Cobley
8lb fish from Boatside to Warren Heath.

See below a sort of explanation from WUF, though it's only one theory amongst several others, regarding to lack of fry on the Usk and a couple of other Welsh rivers.  Note the guarded suggestion of a need for further measures on exploitation

WUF NEWS 8th September 2016

Concerns for Usk Salmon

Both Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and WUF have been electrofishing in the Wye and Usk to monitor levels of juvenile salmon and trout.

The headline news is the alarmingly low salmon fry numbers in the Usk. This has been mirrored in 2 of the others river monitored by NRW, the Twyi and the Clwyd. In the case of the Usk, salmon fry were found at only 12 of the 42 sites jointly fished to date WUF's survey (133 sites this year) was intended to answer why several important Usk tributaries have been performing poorly in recent years. Instead we have found find ourselves collecting data on a very concerning and catastrophic event. Thankfully, salmon parr and trout in the Usk are at normal levels and results from Wye and also the rivers Tawe and Glaslyn appear to be unaffected.

Already there is speculation as to what the cause could be and the issue raises a number of questions. Recalling that the problem affects only certain rivers and learning that trout fry are not affected (at least on the Usk) answers some of them. It is neither a pollution nor a wash out.

Last winter started with low water and rapidly changed at a very crucial point in the salmon spawning season (late November) to one of the wettest and the warmest on record. The whole pattern can be seen on this section of the Metoffice website. Please scroll to the section on Wales.

The upshot is that there was an average temperature that was 4.7C above the long term average across Wales and over 5C above the long term average in the Usk. The critical point for hen salmon is at spawning itself. A temperature over 10C for even a short period is damaging and if it persists for 10 days the result can be total failure of eggs to survive or even the fish fail to spawn.

How then were the fry of other rivers not affected? Wye, Glaslyn and Tawe were amongst those recording 'normal' levels of salmon fry, yet they were all subject to the same high flows. Wye and Glaslyn start from relatively high altitudes and temperatures were lower, just. The Tawe flows between Tywi and Usk and might be expected to suffer the same fate. However, this river has a high proportion of ground water emerging from the Limestone strata which would have moderated the warmer overland flows.

Taking all the known facts, high temperatures to us seem the most likely explanation for this terrible result and the completion of WUF's electrofishing survey an analysis of water temperatures currently being undertaken by NRW will increase our understanding of this event.

We don't at this stage think it was high flows in themselves, nor disease.  

Juvenile trout and salmon. Can you spot the diffrence at this life stage?

What's to be done? Clearly every salmon should be spared for spawning and no doubt, we will need to look at exploitation in the round (again) However, Like 1976, the very hot summer that did so much damage, events are still rare and we can still expect winters to be cold in the main, and the salmon's complex life cycle will compensate to some extent.....so we are still left with the need to continue restoration of all our rivers to take advantage of more normal conditions and everyone should look more closely at how they can reduce their carbon footprint and reduce it.

WUF's Annual Meeting will be at the Angel Hotel, 6.30pm Friday 4th November. The will be a buffet supper and raffle of goods and promises. Please contact the office 01874 711714 if you would like to attend

All the best from WUF