We begin with a press release from this weeks Northern Times.

The head of a Highland fishing tackle business has dramatically called for restraint from salmon anglers who use his fishing flies.

Ronald Sutherland, partner of the Helmsdale Company is trying to help raise awareness of dwindling salmon stocks by calling on anglers to return as many salmon as possible caught on his salmon flies. Ronald was taught to tie flies by the late Megan Boyd and said that his business sells large quantities of deadly salmon flies every year which catch thousands of salmon worldwide but he does not want to be responsible for the killing of salmon!

The timely call comes in the same week as acclaimed film documentary "Kiss the Water" by Eric Steel is released. The film entails the life of worldwide fly dressing eccentric Megan Boyd who was also an avid salmon conservationist; ironically she hated the fact that her beautifully tied flies killed so many salmon". Ronald wants to carry on Megan's conservational ethos as salmon stocks decline in the hope that his business can help turn things around for the wild salmon by encouraging more fish to reproduce naturally.
"Salmon are on the end of an unprecedented rough deal right now as it would seem that along their whole life cycle, every animal that preys on them is protected heavily by law. Quality salmon angling is critical to the rural Scottish economy and all anglers must do their bit to sustain stocks, if that means releasing most of the salmon we catch then so be it, we can sleep easy knowing we are all helping an important cause.

As an addition to the press article above..
In my opinion is not technically possible to return all salmon safely due to the unpredictability of hooking damage and angler handling ability, ( more education is required in this department ) some fish are just too badly damaged and may fatally bleed but I firmly believe that to preserve something (a species) you need to protect it and look after it.
Owning a fishing tackle business gives me the opportunity to soak in very topical feedback from a huge pool of anglers and fishery managers and the line I am getting is that a seasonal long mandatory 100% C & R would not be welcome especially in the Highlands as there is a great fear that for starters, the Anti Bloodsports Brigade would have cause to step in with a rather large axe to grind. There is however an appetite for returning all spring salmon until stocks are seen to be recovering. The Association of Salmon Fishery Boards are calling for all salmon to be returned in Scotland up to May 15^th, I think this may well be followed by all District Fishery Boards next year.
Due to the heritable rights of costal netsmen you cannot stop them netting just as you cannot stop a landowner with heritable rights from salmon fishing if he happens to let anglers kill fish on his own river beat. This is the reality of the world we live in so we can only work with what we have on offer. Netting will never be eradicated by law and bad practice in salmon farming can only be chipped away at. The only real hope anglers and salmon have is from the big money buyouts of netting stations and that is where we need to be concentrating most effort. This of course needs to be of high priority to quell posture as the Faroese are coiled and ready to spring back into full netting mode at sea.

The open Helmsdale River Board meeting takes place this week on Saturday 10th at 2.30 in Kildonan Hall. The Agenda is an interesting one and we will know soon how serious the Board are with regard to various issues.

On the fishing front things are flat lining a little. A good catch barometer in low water is Association water feedback, one fish only was caught by William Jappy on his trusty Willie Gunn. Few fish are running and around 15 were reported for the week, the highlight being a super 16 pounder on beat 4 above for Graham Robertson Wick fishing Kildonan rods. Things can only get better.

The Loop Cross S1 army move on, these awesome rods continue to outsell all others due to a revolutionary technical jump in quality with their incredible 3M blanks. Let me know if you want to try one as I have demo's in the tackle shop, if you are serious about fishing, don't buy another rod until you have tried these first! However I must say that in a lower price bracket the huge favourite is the Mackenzie rod & line range who also have all sizes available.