Help The Recovery of the Wye Salmon

The last true confirmed 40lbs salmon taken by rod and line was the fish taken on the Red Lion water at Bredwardine in the mid 80s, go back to the 1950s for a fish of 50lbs; a 50lbs was taken at Redbrook and one of 52lbs at Bigsweir. Fish 30lbs to 35lbs are still taken though since catch and release these are usually estimates ?

“The Wizard of the Wye”, Robert Pashley was the tenant of the Hillcourt and Goodrich beats from 1906 to 1957 taking over10,000 salmon to his own rod, twenty nine of these fish weighed over forty pounds, his best year was 1936 when he killed 678 salmon averaging over sixteen pounds-the total weight. At the Dog Hole Pool Pashley took a salmon of 43lbs, taken on October 15th 1940. C. H. Moffat also took a salmon of 45lbs on a fly on 10th April 1915 from this pool, Mr. G.Trafford of Hillcourt fishing the Dog Hole in 1913 took a cock salmon of 47 3/4lbs on a fly.

The last fish 30lbs plus taken from the Lydbrook and Stowfield Fishery were a 30lb in 1985, a 32 and 37 in 1976, one weighing 39lbs, weighed on a officially calibrated butchers scales the day after capture, a 49lb taken in 1939 and a fish of 50lbs taken in 1937.

90% decline in rod caught salmon since the 1970's, over 30-years since the last 40lbs salmon, over 60-years since the last 50lbs salmon. We'll all be dead waiting that long for the river to recover, so some positive action now please.