River Deveron, Scotland
River Categorisations 2017
River Deveron – Category 1.
Water of Philorth – Category 3.
Exploitation of River Deveron salmon are thought to be sustainable therefore no additional management action is currently required. This recognises the effectiveness of existing non-statutory local management interventions, such as the River Deveron Conservation Code and the Code should continue to be followed vigorously during 2017.
Exploitation of Water of Philorth salmon is thought to be unsustainable therefore management actions required to reduce exploitation for 1 year i.e. mandatory catch and release (all methods) will be enforced.
Measures to regulate the killing of salmon for the 2017 season have recently been laid in the Scottish Parliament – The Conservation of Salmon (Scotland) Amendment Regulations and The Tweed Regulation (Salmon Conservation) (No. 2) Order 2016.
Moving from the district approach in 2016, the new regulations have looked to progress conservation status, where rod catches and counter data have allowed, on an individual river or groups of river basis.
Key aspects of the regulations for the 2017 fishing season are:
the prohibition on the retention of salmon caught in coastal waters remains in place due to the mixed stock nature of the fishery and limited data on the composition of the catch (this will be reviewed in 2018)
killing of salmon within inland waters is permitted where stocks are above a defined conservation limit
mandatory catch and release is introduced in areas rivers which fall below their defined conservation limit
the completion of a Conservation Plan for all areas that have been assessed
Carcass tagging for net-caught fish for areas in categories 1 and 2 (including the Tweed District) continues. Further information on the detail of the scheme can be found in the guidance note)
More information can be found here: www.gov.scot
