Haslam,

There was illegal fishing in the fjord, certainly, along with the legal netting, in the final years. I remember hearing all sorts of stories of goings-on. My point remains, however, that, from an examination of the timeline, I don't believe this in itself could be responsible for the sudden and drastic collapse in fish numbers. Here's my analysis:

As I said in my earlier post, the Bolstad fishery had a terrific season in 1987 (I'm fairly sure, though it just might have been 1986), immediately prior to the collapse. I think it's reasonable to assume there would have been an ample spawning stock left that year - there's little reason to think that the record catch was because the rod fishermen were so effective that they suddenly caught a significantly higher proportion of the run with broadly the same rod effort. We may have been good, but I don't think we were that good! And although Bolstad never held big numbers of resident fish, I certainly don't recall any fewer fish in the pools at the end of '87 as compared to previous seasons. Also, the nets clearly didn't catch all the fish that year!

In the light of what I said in a previous post about Vosso fish typically returning 6-7 years after spawning (3 river winters and 2-3 sea winters), the bulk of the progeny of 1987's spawners wouldn't have returned to the river until, say, 1993. Assuming sufficient spawners, for there not to have been a good return of fish in '93, something must clearly have interfered catastrophically with the stocks at some point between the eggs being deposited in the autumn of '87 and their expected time of return to the river.

By '93 the river was, effectively, closed (I think there may have been a very limited amount of fishing, but nothing like the previous level), and the nets were off, so any fish would have had a more or less clear run home. Thus the lack of fish in '93 cannot be attributed to over-fishing in the fjord or river.

Furthermore, it seems likely that the problem occurred somewhere between the redds and the smolts hitting the open sea, as the collapse appears to have affected Vosso fish only, and from this point on one would expect other rivers to be similarly affected. I think we can therefore narrow it down to the period between egg deposition and the smolts arriving at sea.

There have been a number of factors suggested that might have caused in-river problems - acidification, flood defence work, problems from road building, increased toxic aluminium levels in the water, etc. However, the information I have is that current parr and smolt numbers in the river (aided by the hatchery) appear reasonably healthy, but that the number of returning fish is still pitifully small. This suggests to me that the problem can be narrowed down further to somewhere between the smolts leaving the river and their mingling with other populations in the open sea. In other words, in the fjord. It could be some other form of localised pollution, but I believe the most likely culprit is the salmon farms in the fjord.

The suggestion that over-fishing (by whatever means) was to blame just doesn't add up.