The 2023 Scottish Salmon Floor Did Not Hold

Scotland’s reported wild salmon rod catch fell to 28,020 in 2025, below the 2023 low that had been the worst since 1952. Anglers released 98 percent of those fish. The Marine Directorate had published 32,477 as the record when the 2023 Official Statistics came out on 15 May 2024.

A year of higher catches in 2024 made that floor look temporary. The next season undercut it, and the share of fish put back rose again.

The 2023 Floor Did Not Hold

Those 2023 returns closed a series that began in 1952. The rod total was down 24 percent on 2022 and sat at 77 percent of the previous five-year average. Spring fish, the early multi sea-winter run taken before 1 May, numbered 2,366. Net-and-coble men kept 246 wild salmon, already among the lowest retained catches on the book, and 96 percent of rod-caught fish went back.

The 2024 season then rose to 47,618 in the later Official Statistics, with 98 percent released. That bounce did not reset the stock. On 29 April 2026 the Chief Statistician put 28,020 wild salmon for 2025 on the table, 41 percent below 2024 and 68 percent of the previous five-year average, the lowest rod catch since records began. It is about a quarter of the 2010 peak of 111,405. The previous published low, the 2023 wild salmon catch of 32,477, no longer stands.

ROD CATCH, 2023 TO 2025

Spring in 2025 fell 38 percent from 2024 to 1,629, which is 70 percent of its five-year average and the second-lowest spring total in the series. The lowest spring figure remains 2020, when COVID closures shut beats. Rod days in 2025 were 192,859, down 5 percent, a small drop in effort beside a 41 percent drop in fish.

Anglers Put 98 Percent Back

Of the 28,020 wild salmon reported by rod in 2025, 27,568 were released and 452 were kept. Spring multi sea-winter fish taken before 1 May were released at 99 percent, the same spring rate as 2023 and 2024. Catch-and-release has been logged since 1994. The 2025 rod release share is the highest in that series.

THE 2025 SEASON IN FOUR FIGURES

• Rod days: 192,859 reported, covering 99 percent of the rod catch on 97 percent of returned rod forms.
• Fish kept: 452 wild salmon retained by rod, against 27,568 put back.
• Nets kept: 175 wild salmon retained in the net-and-coble fishery, the lowest since 1952, with 96 released.
• Forms in: 1,993 of 2,160 catch forms returned, a 92 percent rate, unadjusted for missing sheets.

Coastal killing has been closed since the 2016 season. Haaf nets in the Solway kept 20 salmon and released 277. Other fixed engines kept none and released 345. Added up, nets took 913 wild-origin fish. The Marine Directorate says those cuts meant a larger share of returning salmon reached the redds for a time, and estimated spawning rose until 2010. Spawning has fallen since, even with almost no legal kill left on the bank.

Sea trout followed the same path. The 2025 rod catch of 13,025 adult sea trout is the lowest since records began, 91 percent of the previous five-year average, with 12,022 released and 1,003 kept. Finnock, logged since 2004, numbered 6,925.

Empty Beats and a Thinning Trade

The people who still walk those beats are filing the returns that make the Official Statistics. Robert Harper has just retired after 50 years as a ghillie on the River Dee.

In 1978, by the end of March, we’d caught 400 salmon. These last few years, we are down to a handful of fish before the end of May. And I really mean a handful.

Robert Harper, retired River Dee ghillie

He has said the Dee carried more than 40 ghillies in 2014. Hotels that once filled for the spring run now take the odd party. Rod days falling 5 percent in a season when the catch fell 41 percent is the trade shrinking around empty water, not a census artefact of people staying home.

Farmed salmon sits in a different ledger. A BiGGAR Economics study for Salmon Scotland put the farmed sector at £953 million in gross value added in 2024, described as about £1 billion once wider effects are counted, up 25 percent from £766 million in 2021. The same work counts about 2,500 direct farming jobs and 11,000 roles supported, with £307 million of that value in the Highlands. The wild fishery still employs the ghillies, guesthouses and tackle shops that live off rod weeks. Those weeks are shorter.

The 300,000 Fish That Still Come Home

Catch is a fishery measure. The Marine Directorate’s status paper of 5 August 2026 estimates how many adults reach the coast. In the early 1970s around 1 million salmon returned to Scottish waters. In recent years that has fallen to around 300,000. Between 2011 and 2025, 76 stocks showed a consistent decline. Of 70 stocks without a statistically clear decline, 57 still had fewer salmon in 2025 than in 2011. Twenty-seven stocks showed no consistent pattern.

NatureScot’s genetic scorecard, drawing on ICES, says Scottish Atlantic salmon make up over 34 percent of the European stock. The same assessment lists Great Britain as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, a recategorisation made in December 2023, with Europe Vulnerable and the global listing Near Threatened. Hybridisation with aquaculture escapees is named among the threats to genetic diversity, alongside poor marine survival and damage to spawning ground.

Fisheries Management Scotland, which speaks for river managers, said the 2025 east-coast drought moved the needle on that year’s rods. Dr Alan Wells, its chief executive, used the February 2026 provisional release to press for faster work on water and on every life stage of the fish.

The publication of the provisional catch statistics for the 2025 season reaffirms the need for urgent action to protect and restore Scotland’s wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout.

Dr Alan Wells, Chief Executive, Fisheries Management Scotland

Wells also said water scarcity was a key factor in 2025 and asked SEPA to move faster on abstraction so rivers keep enough flow. A dry summer can strand fish and cut rod success without a matching one-year crash in eggs. The 2011 to 2025 stock map is the longer line.

WHERE EXPERTS DISAGREE

• Ocean and climate: The Marine Directorate says the decline is at least partly driven by changes in ocean conditions linked to climate change, coupled with local pressures, and that a similar fall is seen across the wider North Atlantic.
• Farms and lice: River groups and campaigners keep tying open-cage farms to sea lice, disease and escaped fish that spawn with wild stock, a pressure NatureScot also lists in its genetic scorecard.
• Habitat money: Salmon Scotland points to its Wild Fisheries Fund, nearly £230,000 for projects in 2026, as proof the farmed sector pays into river work; critics on Category 3 water call that a thin answer to a stock that cannot meet its conservation limit.

The status paper does not pick a single culprit. It does say coastal nets no longer take salmon and that 98 percent of rod-caught fish were released in 2025, and that spawning still fell after 2010. Scotland’s Wild Salmon Strategy landed in 2022. The implementation plan followed in February 2023 with more than 60 actions. The two worst rod years in the 1952 series then arrived in 2023 and 2025.

More Rivers Head for a Kill Ban

Each winter the Marine Directorate grades stocks for the next season. Good means at least an 80 percent chance of meeting the conservation limit. Moderate sits between 60 and 80 percent. Poor is under 60 percent and brings a required catch-and-release rule for all methods that year. The assessment usually treats a stock as one river, sometimes a group or a Special Area of Conservation. The 2027 proposals went to consultation on 5 August 2026 and the window closed on 5 September 2026.

STOCK GRADES, 2022 TO 2027

The sheet always adds to 173 stocks. For 2027 the Marine Directorate proposed that 21 stocks decline and three improve. Good status would drop from 32 rivers in 2026 to 22. Poor status would rise from 115 to 123. Eleven stocks would become required-release fisheries.

RIVERS PROPOSED FOR REQUIRED RELEASE IN 2027

• East and north-east: River South Esk SAC, River Teith, River Forth.
• Great Glen and west: River Ness, River Moriston SAC, River Morar, Ullapool River, Kinloch River, River Hinnisdal, River Creed.
• Central belt: River Clyde, with the River Leven in Dunbartonshire also taken as poor to match Endrick Water SAC in its catchment.

Barr Water, Little Gruinard River SAC and the River Etive were listed as improving, which would lift a required-release rule on those three. Until ministers sign the amendment regulations, 2027 remains a proposal. The 2025 catch is already in the book.

What a Catch Record Leaves Out

A rod total is not a count of every salmon in Scotland. It is what proprietors, occupiers and agents wrote on 1,993 forms in a year when east-coast rivers ran low, when 192,859 rod days were logged, and when almost every legal fish had to go back. Weather, water and who still buys a week on the river all sit inside the 28,020.

WHAT THE RETURN CANNOT SEE

• Effort versus stock: Rod days fell 5 percent in 2025 while the catch fell 41 percent, so the drop is not just fewer people fishing.
• Drought versus trend: Low to extremely low flows in the first quarter of 2025, lasting on east-coast rivers, cut sport without rewriting the 2011 to 2025 decline map.
• Farmed-origin reports: Proprietors logged 480 salmon of farmed origin in 2025, 1.6 percent of the catch by all methods, against 48 fish and 0.15 percent in 2023; those fish are a separate line, identified by appearance, and they are not in the wild-origin record low.

Late forms still rewrite older seasons. The 2023 publication on 15 May 2024 used 32,477. Later books have already adjusted some earlier years once missing sheets arrived. The 2025 total of 28,020 is the figure the Chief Statistician released on 29 April 2026. It is also the number river boards will carry into the next grading round.

Harper’s handful of fish before the end of May is the same series, counted from the bank. The 2027 grades are still proposals. The 2025 catch is not.

Frequently Asked Questions

How are Scotland’s salmon catch figures collected?

Proprietors, occupiers and agents of fisheries must send catch forms to the Marine Directorate, which has run the series since 1952. For 2025 it issued 2,160 forms and received 1,993 back. The published totals are not scaled up for missing sheets. Return rates over the previous 10 years sat between 93 and 95 percent, and later Official Statistics revise older seasons when late forms and amendments arrive. Five-year averages still carry the 2020 and 2021 COVID closures inside them.

What counts as a spring salmon in the official statistics?

A spring salmon is a multi sea-winter fish reported as taken by rod before 1 May. The 2025 spring total of 1,629 is the second-lowest in the series. The lowest spring total was 2020, when COVID closures and restrictions shut fisheries, which is why the Marine Directorate treats that year as a break in the spring record rather than a clean stock signal.

When did Scotland stop allowing salmon to be kept from coastal nets?

Retention of salmon caught in coastal waters has been prohibited since the 2016 season under the Conservation of Salmon (Scotland) Regulations, a rule that mainly hits fixed-engine fisheries. Net fisheries were first required to report released fish for the 2021 season. Inland killing can still be allowed on stocks graded good or moderate for that fishing season.

What does poor conservation status mean on a Scottish river?

Poor status means less than a 60 percent chance of meeting the conservation limit, the minimum safe stock level used in the annual assessment. Killing is treated as unsustainable, so catch-and-release is required for all methods for that season. Good status is at least an 80 percent chance of meeting the limit. Moderate status is a 60 to 80 percent chance, and managers are told to cut exploitation, with catch-and-release pushed hard before a full kill ban.

Are escaped farmed salmon counted in the wild record low?

No. Farmed-origin fish are a separate line on the form, judged by the reporter from appearance, and they are excluded from the wild-origin totals that set the record lows. The Marine Directorate recorded 48 farmed-origin salmon in 2023, 0.15 percent of the catch by all methods, and 480 in 2025, 1.6 percent. The 28,020 figure is wild-origin rod catch only.