Fish counts on England's best salmon river drop

The Environment Agency has described the River Tyne as England's best salmon river

Estimates of salmon and trout populations found upstream on "England's best salmon river" have been below average this year, according to the Environment Agency (EA).

It said the prolonged dry weather at the start of the year had not provided the conditions to encourage fish on the River Tyne to migrate upstream which is where they reproduce.

Fish counters on the river have been partly broken since October 2024 and so the fish counts collected by the EA since then have only been estimates.

"We have confidence in our approach to estimate the number of fish using a combination of historic numbers, rod catch numbers, and fishing effort data," the EA said.

Local fisherman Gerry Moore, who has fished on the Tyne for over 50 years, said he was not confident in the EA's estimates and that without a working counter it was difficult to tell how badly salmon numbers had actually dropped on the river.

He said both he and his fishing club had experienced smaller catches than they did in previous years.

"It's declined steadily over certainly the past seven or eight years," he said.

'Fixed by autumn'

The Tyne's fish pass - at Riding Mill in Northumberland - has been fitted with a monitor to check the water body's salmon and sea trout populations since 1996.

The counters were broken between July 2023 to July 2024 and then again partly since October.

The EA said it expected the river to have fully working counters by the autumn.

"We can only repair fish counters when it is safe and suitable to carry out in-river work," a spokesperson said.

In addition, the EA said it was still investigating its faulty fish counters on the River Wear which have not collected any data at all this year.

It said was working with external consultants and Durham County Council to fix the problem.

Fish counters help monitor the different levels of growth in the salmon and sea trout population in the Tyne

The EA said the likelihood of its fish counters in the region breaking had increased in the last 10 years due to a rise in "very high flow events".

Since 2020 the fish counters on the Tyne have not collected full fish counts for 32 months, according to latest EA figures.

Whereas between 1996 and 2019 there were just 11 months were full counts were not collected.

The EA said it was reviewing the design of new protective covers for its counters so that they could better withstand strong river forces.