NEWS – all categories

What fish?

Make sure you log what you have actually caught, not what you think you may have caught. And here is the worrying context.’ 

Members are no doubt aware that the Atlantic Salmon has been moved into the UK Endangered Species category in Autumn 2023. The Call to Action of this note is to make quite sure what fish it is that you land, if you should be lucky. We know things are pretty bad (see next paragraph), and we must all do our best to learn how bad. If in doubt, take a picture and upload it for comment here. If you are not in doubt, upload it anyway with your comment. The paragraphs below with their unusual information are designed to help. 

First though, how bad are things?  The answer is ‘Pretty horrible’. The Dart is among the worst performing rivers, the run having declined from several thousand to very few hundred (again if lucky), with the fall steepening in the last ten years. Properly verifiable facts are few but such as they are, they illustrate the disaster very clearly. In 1969, the last year before UDN, the licensed Dart nets killed 1200 fish and the rods a further 300, as far as research can tell. That was 1500 killed. The very experienced DAA member who has proffered this information and who has fished throughout this period, reckons that these figures can be taken as annual averages for the 1960s. Fifty years on, in calendar 2022, the Fishtek counter at the top of the Totnes Weir pool registered 161 fish passing up of a size likely to be salmon, and – news just in – the 2023 figure was down to 50 (fifty, alas no typo). In each of these two years the 75 Dart Angling Association members have landed 1 fish between them. (Sea trout between 2022 and 2023 registered 500, down from 850, approximately. Who doesn’t blench at a 41% year on year decline? 

Members will have their own reaction to this situation with one view (arguably the most sensible) being that unless the river is fished it will not be known what it holds, although the fish counters at Totnes Weir do give a clear indication of the downward trend, and hence support to the new regulation that all salmon must be returned all season on Association waters. The fish counters are good – although there is room for a tiny hopefulness: if you look closely in flood water you can spot the odd fish going straight up the weir face and missing them out. 

It seems vital that catch returns are accurate and that there is as little impact as possible on fish from mishandling at vulnerable stages. So return them delicately. In the first months of the season kelts will be present and their bright silver colour can lead to misidentification; they may fight well briefly but lack the stamina of a fresh Spring fish which will also be silver, but with a dark back and lilac flanks, perhaps with sea lice or their marks. Kelts’ heads will appear large for their bodies, their vents will be distended, and all will have gill maggots.

A rawner, an unspawned male salmon from the previous year, is unlikely to cause confusion since they will possess a large kype, will be coloured and may be dripping milt. Baggots, unspawned female salmon, are often bright and full bodied being full of eggs still and can be more difficult to distinguish from a springer, but they alone will have freshwater gill maggots.

The Spring run has declined to a few individuals so Members are more likely to encounter one of the above in the early season; the main migration nowadays of fresh fully fit salmon is in Summer, the September grilse run having declined so that in the last month of the season most fish will be coloured summer salmon. 

Sea trout are sometimes confused with brown trout and vice versa, including the stocked trout, although it is hoped that this year they will be fin-clipped and photos will be posted to aid identification. At the end of the season the larger sea trout may resemble brown trout as they colour. 

The internet has photos of these developmental variations. Do look carefully – we are all in the conservation net now.

Here is a link to some images

POACHING

Last Friday afternoon a member was trout fishing at Caddaford from the Fogdens bank when he became aware of the tail of a good sized fish behaving strangely in the pool tail. He waded across the pool (getting his waders full in the process) and found a grilse of about six or seven pounds with what appeared to be a rabbit snare and heavy nylon attached around the gills. After quite a struggle he managed to remove the snare and the fish swam away.
The matter has been reported to the Environment Agency but would members please be aware that despite low numbers of returning salmon incidents such as this may still be occurring. This type of poaching was quite prevalent in years gone by, usually in lower water conditions which have not been prevalent recently, although we cannot be sure how long the fish was snared up or where the fish was initially entangled.
Please be vigilant for incidents such as this or any illegal fishing.
EA Reporting Incidents no; 0800 807060 

Charles Bingham game fishing course notes

Just posted here:

Notes and illustrations that formed part of the beginners fly fishing instructional notes supplied to attendees of the courses run on the Dart by the late Charles Bingham. Charles ran the courses at Fogdens on the Dart and also on the West Dart, the Fogdens fishing now being owned by the Association.
Charles was an excellent writer of salmon and sea trout fishing books that often concentrated on the application in smaller rivers, indeed one book is titled ‘Salmon Fishing in Small Rivers’, something which of course has great resonance with anglers particularly in the south west.
These notes and illustrations are still very useful to beginners today and we are grateful to committee member Chris Baxter for their inclusion to the website and to Charles’s family for allowing us to make them available to members.


P.Prowse Hon Sec May 23

NOTE: As the notes referred to above are page scans, they may be difficult to read on smaller screens. As well as following the link above, the notes also can be found in the ‘Pages’ section, either on the left of page or under the “Hamburger” icon at the top of smaller screens.

Dart water quality

For those of you interested in Dart water quality measurements in detail, the following link will take you to a list of the twenty most recent sampling results at Totnes weir, from Nov 2019 to May 2022.

https://environment.data.gov.uk/water-quality/view/sampling-point/SW-70720104

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There are also some classification data here:

Dart | Catchment Data Explorer | Catchment Data Explorer

The latter appear to be the latest data available, from 2019 (opens in new tab)