A thought..........

Salmon angling on our rivers was once a sport for the "Gentry " , certainly on the mighty river Wye .

The most successful was the legendary Robert Pashley "The Wye wizard " said to have caught over 10,000 salmon in his lifetime..........His best season was in 1936 when he caught 678 salmon !!!

Fast forward a few decades and the world had changed ,salmon angling no longer just for the gentry and the doors opened to unlimited anglers catching unlimited numbers of salmon...........

There are many reasons for the decline of salmon stocks on our rivers , could this perhaps be one of them ? after all Pashley certainly showed the potential to catch huge numbers of salmon if present............

Should this potential to do further harm to stocks be permitted on a river where stocks are said to be rock bottom ...........after all hooking ,playing and handling a salmon accounts for the death of a percentage of these fish , some seasons that number can be quite significant

As we speak fishery owners and NRW are saying salmon stocks are at an all time low on the river Usk . Perhaps salmon angling should be suspended for 10 years on this river to allow stocks to recover ? Why continue to put this stock under further pressure .