FRAGILE spring salmon stocks on the Tweed and its tributaries are being threatened by the Gardo netting station on the mouth of the river at Berwick which, it is claimed, started killing the fish last week.

According to the River Tweed Commission (RTC), which manages and polices the world famous fishery – worth an estimated £24m annually to the economy of the catchment - that practice breaches its voluntary conservation policy.

The RTC edict demands that all salmon taken by anglers between April 1 and June 30 must be returned to the river unharmed.

However, under Scottish legislation which uniquely applies to the Tweed fishery on both sides of the border, the killing of spring-running salmon during that period at Gardo – operated by the River Tweed Wild Salmon Fishing Company and the only remaining netting station on the river – is not illegal.

This week, former RTC chairman and Tweed beat owner Andrew Douglas Home urged anyone with an interest in conserving salmon on the river to make representations to the company.

“They are engaged in an outrage and we need your help and support in stopping it,” wrote Mr Douglas Home on his Tweedbeats website. “They deserve all the vilification and opprobrium at what they are up to.”

In a media statement, the RTC revealed it was addressing the issue of spring salmon management on the Tweed with the Scottish Government.

Of its seasonal catch and release policy, the RTC stated: “It ensures that enough fish return to the river to spawn, whilst keeping the valuable early-season fishing open.

“This policy, based on sound objective data, clearly indicates there should be no killing of the spring stock which remain scarce on the river.”

“The only commercially active netting station on the river [at Gardo] has now started to kill these early-running fish. While it is operating within the current Scottish Government law, it flies the face of the anglers upstream who are returning all the spring salmon they catch to the water to protect this fragile and scarce stock of fish.

“Nowhere else in England can spring salmon be killed.”

The statement said current legislation in Scotland did not take account of the fact the Tweed’s spring salmon were a “separate and distinct type” and that Scottish Government conservation limits -calculated from all the different stocks of fish on a river – “inevitably reflects the state of the stronger stocks rather than that of the weakest”.

“The Scottish Government now recognises the need for separate management of spring salmon stocks and active discussions are being held with the RTC to see how an appropriate management regime can be achieved,” concluded the statement.

Despite several attempts this week, the Peeblesshire News was unable to obtain a comment from Michael Hindhaugh, the Berwick businessman who founded the River Tweed Wild Salmon Fishing Company as a social enterprise in 2015 and leases the Gardo netting station from the Berwick Harbour Commission.

The recent RTC annual report revealed that, in 2016, 2,464 spring salmon were caught and released by Tweed rods – up from 2,030 the previous year.