Marine Scotland recently announced their intention to collect rod effort data from fisheries in 2019 (for salmon only).
While we agree that this information would be very beneficial to understanding salmon runs, collecting the necessary data is likely to prove very difficult indeed and the quality of data returned may be less than good. During our campaign earlier this year to overturn our Cat 3 we highlighted to Marine Scotland and the ECCLR committee hat this was one of the many flaws in their methodology in determining conservation assessments.
The quality of rod catch data that is already required is extremely varied and its value, questionable. How can rod effort be collected accurately from Clubs that already struggle to get returns from their anglers?
However, it has been announced, will be required next season and will be mandatory and therefore presumably, penalties will be raised against those fisheries that fail to submit accurate records.
You can read the proposal at the following link
https://www2.gov.scot/Resource/0054/00543402.pdf
Regards
JR
