KEEP THE TRADITION OF SALMON NETTING ON THE TAMAR TAVY

It still seems that there is an un-necessary and distasteful us and them in this discussion about netting. Please remember that both fisheries have a right to take salmon from the river. Sadly the Salmon numbers are not what they were in the 1970's and there is need for both fisheries to show some restrictions in their takings. I understand that a majority of Fly fishermen kill no more than one salmon a year and some return all that they catch. I have read of some Scottish research that shows that most fish released survive very well to go on to spawn. So rod fishermen for their £80 licence are fairly good at conservation. I also understand that some of the river owners carry out important work such as trash dam removal, cleaning of spawning beds and fencing to keep stock out of the river. I suppose that the rod fishermen carry out quite a lot of important work to help maintain our Salmon stocks and we should give them some credit for this, along with their self imposed conservation measures. Netsmen must stick together and play our own part in conservation to ensure that Salmon continue to run the river and both fisheries remain sustainable. Lets not fight each other but work with the rods to try and bring our Salmon numbers back to their former levels. We must remember that rod fisherman are not allowed to sell the fish that they catch so they can not earn any money from their sport, which is a benefit that the netsmen are allowed.

In reply to number 49 I have followed the fish counter figure since they started, and actually wish that there was a counter on my own river. There is little doubt that Gunnislake counter under reads in high flows and Tom's paper re-calculates this using the flow data and the research of Dr Solomon et al. Without this recalculation the Tamar would be considered "at risk" and there would be no fishing. Whilst this re-calculation has an element of caution in it, it also reflects some uncertainty in its calculations. However if the Tamar did not have a counter the EA would have to calculate the Conservation limit based on Rod catches as they do for most other rivers. This would probably lead to the Tamar being put at risk again, so the Toms recalculation is in everyone's favour. Luckily the EA spotted the errors in the counter and made corrections to accommodate these inaccuracies. I would urge everyone to read the index river reports, and find out in detail how the counter is validated and compared with trapping data. It then becomes apparent that the counter provides the best estimate of the stock returning that we can get.
I suspect that the main problem that has caused the declining stocks is a combination of Marine survival (as calculated from the index river schemes),poor (but improving) water quality and silted spawning beds. It is not current exploitation by rods or nets and is unlikely to be the catching of gravid fish caught. The season for rod fishing ends, by and large, before fish become Gravid which tend to be in the uppermost reaches which I believe are not fished.