Salmon fishing: proposed river gradings for 2025 season

Changes from the 2024 assessment

The assessment for the 2024 season has followed the methodology developed in previous years. No new rivers or groups have been added for this year’s assessment. The River Laxford is now assessed on it’s own rather than together with the Gleann Dubh.

While the methodology has not changed for the 2025 season, the assessment has been made using the most up to date data available from fish counters and catch returns from the 2023 fishing season. Both the 2020 and 2021 fishing seasons were affected by the restrictions imposed by the pandemic which inevitably led to a reduction in “rod-effort” and the numbers of fish caught.

Although it is not possible to fully account for the complexity of the pandemic and its impact on rod fishing, local information was used to develop methods which allow its impact to be accounted for in stock assessments for each river or group of rivers. This ensures that the outcomes of the assessment are based on the best available information. We published a paper on methods of accounting for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adult salmon stock estimates in Scotland in 2021.