Thanks to freelance writer, Shooting Times columnist and keen angler, Matt Cross, for the SGA Fishing
Group Coronablog, 4.
Around about now someone on the Stinchar should be catching the first
fish of the season. However the whole country is in lockdown, fishing is forbidden and we are no
exception.
Even without the lockdown it might have proved a challenge. The long period of
drought that has created extreme wildfire conditions in neighbouring Galloway has also affected
Ayrshire and the river has been very low for weeks. Anglers lower down the river might have had a
chance but high up on the wee Stinchar, where I do my fishing, there would have been precious little
chance of a fish even without the lockdown. So at least I have the conciliation that I am not missing
out on much.
However fish do not stop for lockdown and the smolt run has been in progress with
shoals of the little fish heading out to sea or at least trying to. For the last few seasons the
Stinchar has used Smolt shepherds to keep the growing numbers of cormorants away from the smolts. One
stalwart resident of Ballantrae has been doing a particularly dedicated job, getting up at the crack
of dawn and basing his routine around the tide table to help the fish get through.
The smolt
shepherds were hard at work again this season driving off cormorants when nature decided to throw a
spanner in the works. The mouth of the Stinchar has always been exceptionally mobile and just at the
peak of the smolt run a gravel bar shifted to block it completely, penning the smolts in.
The
estuary is a SSSI so getting a machine in and howking the gravel out of the way isn’t an option
without permission from SNH. An application has been lodged, but of course there are forms to fill in
and stakeholders to consult and all the rest of the bureaucracy to be plodded through.... So for now
the smolts will just have to hope for the best and trust in their shepherds until the SNH officers
have done their paperwork.
