I've been scouring the internet for some up to date news on the Vosso but can't find anything. Does anyone know whether it is fishing again? I know that stocks were in decline during the 1980s but was it also hit by Gyrodactylus Salaris?

I'm trying to compile a list of top Norwegian salmon rivers and I'm thinking of the following as a top five probably in this order: Alta, Gaula, Orkla, Stjordal, Namsen. Tana would qualify top on total river catch but much of this is netted and a lot of rod fish is harled as I think is also the case on the Namsen.

The other two to make it a big eight would probably have been Laerdal and Vosso. But Laerdal has been hit by Gyro and has yet to recover and the Vosso was also in trouble. But I'm least sure of the Vosso. Does anyone who knows the Norwegian salmon scene well think this is a fair assessment?

I've searched the forum but have only found some similar (unanswered) questions on the Vosso.

Deesider,

I was quite familiar with the Vosso at one time, having visited it's banks many times as a child (I had to attend a school nearby). Bolstadoyri was famed for it's many 40 pounders, 50s too; Mostly taken on prawn & heavy tackle - ABU 7000s etc.
Sadly these Vosso fish are almost extinct now.
The late seventies & early eighties decline was blamed on high seas netting, even though there was no C&R in Norway.
When I asked in 2004: my cousin in Bergen told me that, as a protective measure, salmon angling on the Vosso was not currently allowed. I don't know if this is due to the Gyrodactys situation; as I haven't had an update.

I'd scratch the Vosso from your list.




C

As I understand the current position, the Vosso is still open for fishing each year, with compulsory C&R for all wild fish (I have heard that this rule is not entirely respected), though escapee farmed fish should be killed and sea trout may also be taken. It is mainly fished by local people.

The reason for its decline is unclear; a number of factors have been suggested, but it appears that the problems are not in the river. For me, the finger must point to the salmon farms in the fjord as one likely cuprit. There is no gyrodactylus, so far as I know.

The Vosso certainly was one of the top rivers in Norway. In terms of fishable water it's much smaller than some of the others mentioned, and since Norwegians tend to rank their rivers in terms of tonnage of fish produced it doesn't feature in some lists. However, in terms of the size of fish, it would probably be at the top of any list, with the possible exception of the Aaro (which you can read about in Charles Ritz's book). In June, the Bolstad fish averaged 28lbs, falling to about 22-24lbs in August. Unlike most rivers there never used to be much of a grilse run and a typical season would see more 40 pounders than grilse caught at Bolstad.

You will no doubt have read Oglesby's writings about the river, and as Haslam says, it certainly had a reputation for taking many of its fish on spinning tackle, and specifically prawn. This was, however, at least in part because the fly was little used in the years that Odd Haraldsen had the lease of Bolstad (from about 1966 to 1984). Oglesby, in spite of all his protestations about preferring to fish the fly, hardly ever tried it on the Vosso, and made out that the couple of fish he did catch on fly were a great triumph. He also, when Haraldsen lost the lease, mounted a campaign out of spite to rubbish the river, so his later writings portray it in a very different light to his early stuff. But the fact is that when the Charringtons and CM Wells had the fishing in the inter-war years and after, quite a good proportion of fish were taken on fly, and the people who had the lease after Haraldsen set about reestablishing the fly as a popular method. It's worth mentioning that not only was the first fish of their tenancy caught on fly (somewhere around 40-42lbs, taken by an American on a single handed rod) but also the largest (a shade under 50lbs, taken by Terry Golding and written up in T&S in about 1989). I think that in the last year before the river was closed about 30% of fish were taken on fly. It's not a river that lends itself readily to fly fishing, being very deep and fast, but especially with modern tackle I'm sure that the fly could still work well there.

To be strictly accurate, the stocks were not in decline in the 1980s. They crashed quite suddenly - the average catches were more or less level and 1986 or 1987 (I forget which) was the best season at Bolstad since the 1960s, but the following year the fish simply disappeared, and the catch fell from a high of about 270 to approximately 35 for the season.

Although there are a lot of farmed escapees, and it seems likely that the genetics of the wild stock will have been polluted by these, I believe there is a hatchery still operating that tries to preserve the true Vosso stock as best it can. So if you are writing in a historical context, the Vosso certainly should be up there with the best. As a current fishing prospect, it is not. As to the future, who knows?

Contact me if you want to know more; I may be able to give you more information or put you in touch with one or two people who could help further.

There are some spooky parallels with the Wye in this tale.

__________________
“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Way back in 1968 I went down to my favourite beat on the Slaney - I lived in those days in nearby County Carlow. It was April. The river approach was via. a gorge with a high brow: wearing Polaroids I counted 27 fish - every one with fungus on its head / shoulder in the pool below. That sickly memory is as vivid today as on that foul day. I did not fish again for salmon until I moved to London & discovered - nearly 10 years later - Tweedside.


I cannot help but believe that not all is as it should be even now. We - all of us - built up Scottish Salmon farming through taxation - believing in a tissue of lies regarding 'local opportunity'. Original investors included Arabian Companies which put meals on internal US aircraft!!!! More recently Norwegians have bought-out many early investors and now have introduced their own stock fish bred in Norway.

We read here and elsewhere of Norway with her salmon problems. But I also read of West Coast / Western Isles farm escapees which, tagged, return to Norway! On Lewis it is not uncommon to catch escapees from poorly managed farms.

Back in the mid-1980s we rented fishing on a very well known West Coast river for two weeks each year. It was once prolific, but the runs had dwindled. Then one year when everything was 100% right the river was full of fish, but in four days not one had been caught. Late on the Thursday I managed to hook and land a fresh summer salmon. One eye had a bad cataract. It was reported; however it was also hushed-up by the St. Andrews research people. Eventually it transpired that attempts to control lice in the sea-cages had resulted in the use of exceptionally strong chemicals which - during testing - had produced blindness in caged fish!!!!!!

For some years the Scottish salmon farming community has been staffed by computers which feed the fish. As already mentioned, Norwegians have bought a lot of equity in the industry - for that is what it is.

You and I - through taxation - paid a lot of money by way of grant into this industry which was designed to give employment opportunity to the local population. Instead, the industry was initially run by itinerant workers from all over Britain, and , now, by computers.

I fish in the Western Isles as well as my beloved Tweed. What I see is a situation which has spun out of control. Our Government forgot its part in all of this immediately its mythical targets had been met: the same Government that agreed to trade carbon-emission credits and trade-offs with `India and China!!

Today's risk is that young stock from Norway may well totally wipe out our natural stock of salmon on the West Coast and the Outer Isles.

It is from this point of view that I cannot but feel that we should maximise pressure on our own representatives - both national and international - to be honest and clean up their act. It is a sad reflection that the only paper which reports this deteriorating situation is Private Eye!

My greatest wish is that we should stop applauding those who can afford to go to The Litzka etc. and - as far as we can - push for stronger representation at international level for a massive reduction in farming of computer cared for salmon in these isles. OK salmon is now cheaper than chicken, but it is also more full of the potential to give us cancer than is smoking...We can eat salmon to our content - but we cannot smoke other than at home or seedy sin-bins!

AS you can see I should really have sat down and worked this out somewhat more clearly, but what you will have read - if you have bothered - is an appeal to get our own house in order BEFORE we get over concerned with the Norwegian plight. I spoke with a man only today who is off to the Alta tomorrow....I can't help but feel he should have stayed here and fought!

I disagree with this. You make some valid points against the Scottish salmon farming industry, but I don't see any reason to restrict any campaign of opposition to operations there. For a start, and as you say, many of the salmon farming enterprises there are Norwegian-owned. Why not, therefore, take the fight to their own back yard?

I have been reasonably active in arguing against current practices of salmon farming over the past few years, although the strength of my conviction is not drawn from any personal experience of problems in the UK; I've caught fewer than half a dozen salmon from west coast Scottish rivers, and have not fished up there for nearly 20 years.

Aside from whatever I have read on the subject over recent years, my belief that the fish farms need to get their house in order comes from seeing the rivers in Ireland, where I first learned to fish, decimated by the effects of fish farming. I and many others living in the UK would not hesitate to pressurise the salmon farmers there and rail against their failings, yet, at the risk of stating the obvious, Ireland is a separate sovereign state, just as Norway is.

Beyond that, and with specific reference to the Vosso, bear in mind that its fish are a particularly unusual strain. They tend not to smolt for at least three years, and then stay at sea for an exceptionally long time - as I noted above, it was normal to catch more 4SW fish than 1SW fish in the course of a season. In other words, fish would be up to 8 years old when they returned to the river, and the great majority would be at least 5. How many other rivers are there with such a consistently late-maturing strain, with almost no grilse cohort?

I am a believer in the importance of the genetic integrity of salmon from different rivers. But if a river were to be more or less wiped out, I accept that restocking with fish from adjacent rivers of similar character may be an option of last resort. Thus, for example, the Beauly might be restocked from the Conon, the Brora from the Helmsdale, the Annan from the Nith or the Test from the Itchen. However, I'm not aware of anywhere else in the world that has a run of fish like the old Vosso fish - in other words, once lost, those fish are irreplaceable. That's why that particular river and its strain of fish is important in world terms.

As a final thought, there are all sorts of creatures, and indeed plants, that are endangered and at risk of extinction in this country. Yet I do not see that as an argument for not campaigning to save the orang-utan or the tiger.

For those of you who aren't regular readers of the Financial Times, Deesider's piece can be seen here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/cc225538-212...b5df10621.html

I am surprised by his suggestion that the Vosso's decline is due to neglect and over-fishing; I don't believe fishing effort increased much in the 30-odd years prior to the collapse, and neglect would tend to produce a gradual decline, rhather than a sudden crash in fish numbers. Perhaps he will come back and explain how he arrived at his conclusion.

To the lay-man over-fishing is precisely that. ie. Not angling pressure.

In my earlier post I forgot to mention that the fjord was heavily poached/netted & contributed to the Vosso's decline. This along with "high-seas" netting is: "overfishing". So the FT report is, sort of, correct; just a bit economical (shall we say?) with the true facts.

I hope that with DNA sampling, to ensure that the correct mitochondrial line is followed; that the Norwegian fishery scientists succeed in re-establishing this unique run of fish.



C

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.

I'll buy that.


Huge amounts of lice would attack each smolt.
Just as they decimated, no obliterated would be a better word, the west Scotland sea trout runs in rivers feeding sea lochs with salmon farms; and at about the same time too?

Maybe the Norwegian scientists won't sweep it under the carpet like the Scottish (jobs must come first) authorities; but I wouldn't hold my breath


C