The River Helmsdale has fished reasonably well all season. There have been no bumper weeks, but also no weeks without fish swimming up. Weights have been unusually high, in common with some other northern rivers. Three fish have weighed 30 pounds, and some two dozen over 20 lb.
In common with other northern rivers a few ‘pinks’ have been caught, thought to have come from northern Russia where introductions designed to create a commercial net fishery occurred 70 years ago. These straying salmon have been killed, as the government has asked. Pinks spawn earlier than native salmon and their young return to sea in the year of birth, so no freshwater habitat is shared with native salmon for long.
Water temperatures remained low later than usual and never became high all summer. We have had no periods of very low water.
No exceptional spates have occurred to date.
The proportion of the migrations which has consisted of grilse as compared to summer salmon will be determined when we have results from the season’s scale sampling early next year. In common with several other neighbouring rivers there is a feeling that long-term cycles may be moving towards a multi-sea-winter salmon period consisting of older fish, coinciding with fewer grilse.