Interesting reading right enough in the article linked below, especially for the LLFT, our very own Loch Lomond FORESTRY Trust, who have been planting all sorts of Large Wood (LW) trees in all kinds of inconvenient riverbank locations, for fly casting anglers at least, for about ten years now.

And obviously this research paper, compiled over the course of 23 years and over 3500 streams in Sweden also negates the LLAIAs lazy policy of refusing to remove any mature tree (Large Wood LW) obstructions that for years have been conveniently ignored regardless of their impact on the ability of members to actually fish some of the best pools on the Endrick.

The relevant reference, outlined in red within the report, is unambiguous  and stark but I’ll reproduce it here for those who can’t be bothered reading the whole report. It says ” Large wood (LW) did not benefit salmon abundance”. A pretty straight forward and negative conclusion which begs the question, what have the LLAIA and the LLFT been playing at all these years.

https://www.salmonfishingforum.com/threads/interesting-research.289815/?post_id=1558860#post-1558860

Incidentally, Large Wood (LW) did benefit brown trout, which is exactly the fish I’d say we didn’t want to encourage anywhere in the main spawning stream of a predominately salmon and sea trout system. Obviously the smaller brownies compete with salmon parr for food, and the larger trout actively prey on salmon fry and parr. Especially with all these nice sunken tree ambush points thoughtfully created for them by the LLForestryTrust and their lackys the LLAIA.

One of these days I’m actually going to be able to post something sensible that the LLAIA is doing which is deemed might have a positive effect on salmon numbers.

•••••

On another point I saw the following posted by Gwelsher on the Salmon Fishing Forum;

“So the last ratified annual income for Scotland from farmed salmon is £362 million 

The total Scottish budget this year is £63.4 billion 

That is 0.00574 of their budget, and for this they are willing to wipe out one of the most iconic wild creatures on the planet.”

••••••

And, even worse, the original money goes to Westminster and only part of it comes back in the Scottish block grant.

Scottish wild salmon and Scottish salmon angling destroyed by the SNP on the alter of a rediculous independence ideology and for a pittance. And, obviously, a few undeclared favours to selected politicians from the salmon producers AKA Tavish Scott’s mates at the SSPO.

I didn’t check the financial details myself but have no reason to think they aren’t accurate and worth passing on as something to think about when you’re all filling in your annual blank catch returns and deciding whether to get a ticket for next season.

•••••••

Incidentally, I see Tavish Scott is under investigation by the Scottish Parliament for abuse of privilege. Apparently he was using his preferential access pass, giving him unlimited access to his old mates at the place he used to work, i.e. The Scottish Parliament, before he was tossed out for being useless. All past MSPs are allowed to retain their security passes even after they’re resigned, de-selected or fail to get re-elected, and can therefore hang about making nuisances of themselves and trying to influence their former colleagues and pals. Obviously they’re not supposed to be actively lobbying and there are strict rule against that (Ha, bloody Ha) which Tavish Scott in his capacity as mouthpiece for the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation is accused of ignoring.

Every job I’ve ever left the first thing they did was remove all identity cards, access passes and restricted access to all company premises unless by direct invite. It’s normally a case of hand in your car keys, give me your security pass and don’t come back unless invited. No one wants ex-employees swanning in and out unobserved or unattended, for obvious reasons. Everyone that is except these “honourables and right-honourables” who as we all know are the most likely to be the exact opposite any time they get the chance to line their own nests. They’re so trustworthy they get to keep their preferential access perks and privileges because how else would they manage to earn a dishonest crust.

What’s the bets Tavish gets his old mates to get the investigation dropped and manages to retain his instant access to whisper SSPO poison in the ears of anyone he thinks might be useful.

And then on the BBC news this morning I see the committee of MSPs involved in monitoring the performance of salmon farms and improvements instigated after the last damning report have found little, if any, improvement. Seems a reasonable bet that this was the reason Tavish Scott was hovering about the Parliament gang hut looking for old pals to influence and obviously in his desperation pushed a bit too hard and got himself investigated for lobbying.

•••••

It’ll be a year soon since we were first informed of part of the LLAIA Committees visit to the River Cree hatchery which they inspected on the 4th of February 2024. We were informed , as usual, that there would be an urgent follow up issued once the committee had thrashed out their proposals and a timescale of two months was indicated. And now another unproductive year has gone and we still have no idea what, if anything, came of their procrastinations.

Entirely predictable and wholly expected given most of the committee couldn’t be bothered even showing up to the Cree visit and probably have no intention of supporting anything which admits that they’ve been on the wrong track for the last twenty years. They’d rather the LLAIA went belly up than admit to their failures or step aside and lose control of something they obviously have no idea what to do with.

••••••

And lastly a short update on the activities of Malky McCormick, ex-LLAIA Chairman (and the LLFTs current general manager), over the past year which I think you’ll find illuminating, if more than a little pointless.

Here are some of the things Malky has been up to:

In the summer he was doing a lot of gardening. Fintry (a small village on the banks of the Endrick) has a community garden and he was there 4 days on the trot removing the old raised beds and putting in new ones and refilling them with compost. Maybe he expected salmon to spawn there. There was also an LLFT open day where they had freebies to give away and a wagon selling coffee and cakes and other various entertainment type things going on. Malky was there in person, of course, strutting about looking every bit the “expert” he so obviously isn’t. The rumour is he’s making a start on window boxes for Fintry residents next spring.

He has also been doing more work on the river banks putting in willow hurdles at various locations (why?), planting more trees and cutting back Himalayan balsam. In fact doing anything apart from things that would improve the fish stocks.

All the timber stiles that were built and installed by the Brady committee have rotted away due to no upkeep since 2011 and are now more of a danger than a help. But no sign of any maintenance or of new stiles any time soon.

I was out one night with a torch to the stretch of the Endrick behind the rugby field in Fintry which used to be absolutely “hoaching” with gravid salmon anytime after November. It used to be black with them, and many a fish was captured there for the hatchery back in the day when sanity prevailed and “science” was accorded the importance of a subject you dropped immediately after second year. And no, I wasn’t pulled, arrested or charged by any LLAIA bailiff (are there still any such endangered creatures?) or anyone else wondering who could be creeping about shining a big torch into the main salmon spawning river after dark.

Doesn’t give a very good impression of the LLAIAs bailiffing effort when anyone could even consider openly torching the water in November without getting himself pounced on by at least two warranted bailiffs, and maybe even a local Fintry plod or two.

It was low water then, and clear, and I saw absolutely nothing that looked like a spawning salmon (or a Kelt).  It was a shocking demonstration of just how desperate things are.

In the first few weeks following the end of last season the only fish I saw was one dead seatrout of around 2lbs and a salmon of about 7/8 lbs with a touch of fungus sitting in one of the back eddies, waiting patiently to die

For anyone of, or nearing, LLAIA long service concession age and due to qualify for their reduced rate pensioners ticket I wonder just how long there will still be an Association there to make use of it. No wonder the LLAIA Chairman is  selling his trolling gear and again seems to have conveniently disappeared off the face of the earth without leaving any kind of noticeable improvements behind to indicate he was even there.

Stop Press

My FPV Drone spotted none other than Malky again today (16 January)in the area of upper Endrick riverbank around the rugby field at Fintry. He was accompanied by various willow hurdles, willow cuttings, old Christmas trees and timber posts to again try to revet the failing banks and reduce river spread. His previous work 2 years ago planting willow hurdles and cuttings in the same areas didn’t work and the hoped for “living wall” of stabilising new willow growth didn’t materialise. So it’s back to the drawing board and try again time.

But at least his work this time has some passing relevance to river improvement, rather than a vanity project planting some pretty flo’ers and showing off for his admiring public. Hope he didn’t trample on any recently dug redds with his dainty size tens, ‘cos from previous experience Gareth’s shit-hot on that kind of wanton destruction. He’ll find himself banned if he doesn’t take what Gareth decides is suitable precautions to avoid trampling non-existent redds.

I bought January 25 edition of FF&FT after being told there was an article in it about the pros and cons of stocking by Prof. Eric McVicar. I got a bit of a shock at the checkout to find out the cost of FF &FT was now near a fiver. The last time I’d bought it, admittedly a few years ago now, it had been £2.75. However, since I stopped taking all my angling magazines years ago I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to have a look to see what had changed.

Regulars of B&T will know I’ve seldom got a good word to say about fishery scientists. My personal dealings with a number of them over my time on the LLAIA Committee left me with an extremely unfavourable opinion of their abilities, commitment and honesty. I think that over the last twenty or thirty years they’ve been less than open and helpful to anglers in their dealings, with SCOTGOV seemingly able to find any number of loose tongued expert mouthpieces willing to say whatever they’re told for a wage, especially in relation to ignoring the salmon farming problem and the complete prohibition of any kind of hatchery and stocking.

But there are one or two I do have time for, primarily Professor Eric McVicar, who has a long association with the LLAIA and who I first heard speak after we, as a new committee, invited him to address an LLAIA AGM shortly after we took over, I think in March 1996 or ’97. He laid out his thoughts to those attending (about 250 to 300 members in those days) on the best way to proceed with hatchery and stocking, including maintaining local genetics and the importance of habitat work and increasing available nursery habitat and providing access to areas above impassible falls. And Eric’s best qualification as far as I’m concerned is he’s a dedicated, successful and lifelong salmon and sea trout angler, and I think I can say he’s the only serious salmon angling practical fishery scientist I’ve ever met or had dealings with. And that to me is the difference between the scientists who care because what they do actually affects their life, and those who just do it as an academic exercise, a job, a way to pay the mortgage and to whom success, or more likely not, in increasing salmon populations doesn’t mean anything much more than another chance to experiment with someone else’s money.

I’m not going to post a copy of Erics full article on B&T. Suffice to say if you only read Eric’s article out of the whole magazine you’d have got your money’s worth. But I couldn’t resist taking just a small paragraph as being pertinent to my personal crusade to promote the absolute necessity to have some kind of hatchery, stocking and local gene bank facility on the Lomond system against the day, coming very soon I warn you, that we struggle to find any indigenous, gene pure Lomond stock with which to repopulate barren streams following the failure of the current C&R Natural Stocking fantasy.

So here it is below, just a short paragraph, but it should have every LLAIA Member spitting blood and feathers at what has been done to the system by the present management purely in the cause of rubbishing the previous regimes hatchery policy and simply because they couldn’t continue it themselves through laziness, incompetence and basically, pure bile and spite.

“Similarly, the work done by the Stock Improvement Working Group (SIWG) back in the 1990s on Loch Lomond must be praised. It opened up blocked tributaries and stocked above falls, increasing juvenile habitat and hence led to greater numbers of returning adults, whilst at the same time, it endeavoured to maintain both genetic integrity and diversity. TRAGICALLY, UNDER LOCH LOMONDs CURRENT MANAGEMENT SUCH WORK IS NO LONGER CARRIED OUT.”

A tragedy right enough but one of our own short sighted, incompetent and willful making.

I think the above opinion, given so honestly and without hint of pretension should have anyone involved in the wanton deliberate and malicious destruction of the LLAIAs hatchery immediately cashiered from the LLAIA, and their subsequent attempts to disgrace everyone involved in it thereafter should be further cause for self-reflection of the culprits. If, in fact they were ever possessed of any kind of conscience, it should involve them, at the very least, in a few sleepless nights. 

And in closing I can’t ignore the impact of a recent advert on eBay where a full set of four top of the range DIAWA MOOCHER centre pin trolling reels was put up for auction. A rare enough occurrence to see one of these reels, but to see four being sold as a set obviously implies that some onetime Lomond troller is giving up in disgust and despair and divesting himself of the specialist equipment he’ll no longer need. LLAIA Members might be interested to know that the seller was one Colin Liddel, current LLAIA Chairman and the one person who, you’d think, would be the last to be showing anything but complete and unshakeable belief in Lomonds recovery under the direction of himself and his committee. Apparently not though, so maybe it should be made known that whilst encouraging ordinary members to stick with it and support the LLAIA through the lean times to the projected future period of recovery, the LLAIA Chairman is quietly getting rid of his own gear against the day when the demise of Lomond becomes undeniable, and the specialist trolling gear becomes worthless. 

Might be worth asking him what he’s playing at at the forthcoming AGM. If he’s still there by then, obviously.