Salmon in Scotland

[Barbelbonce]

Ah! " Poulet de Bresse". The best chicken dish I've ever eaten. NOT cheap and no wonder why.

I hear that the government-boosted Red Tractor scheme is coming under fire for failing to discourage disgusting practices in the chicken industry. They say that they are not regulators of those who operate under their scheme. Have a listen. Pretty disgraceful.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001df7c
The Red Tractor scheme is now meaningless. It has been criticised for years and this latest is perhaps another nail in it's coffin.

Mike

[Liphook]

Some sectors of agriculture and aquaculture really do need to clean up their act or be banned completely

[Olly]

Poulet de Bresse! Very very tasty - - - and not cheap but absolutely delicious.

If we didn't have farmed salmon - - I dont think we would have any home grown salmon at all - - almost extinct in the wild in some rivers!

[Liphook]

If we didn't have farmed salmon I'd guarantee we would have better stocks in many of our rivers that are capable of sustaining them Olly!

[Olly]

I seriously doubt that - - - pollution/sewerage/global warming/etc!

No farmed salmon that I know about around the south coast. Except in shops to eat.

[Liphook]

Olly note that I said "rivers that are capable of sustaining them". The over extracted, polluted and warmer rivers of the south coast of England don't come into this category, the scarcely polluted, unabstracted, high rainfall and colder rivers of the N and NW of Britain do. Have a look at a map of UK inshore salmon farms and compare that to the long list of collapsing/collapsed salmon rivers within those salmon farmed areas. There is a direct correlation

[Olly]

I know -- I fish for them - - but I like salmon to eat - - but southern salmon, in fact all English are quite rare.

[Liphook]

Difficult to justify killing any wild UK salmon at all Olly! What what with the C&R requirements across so many catchments your desires to eat a wild fish you've caught for yourself on rod and line are virtually gone already, particularly so in England.
Speaking as a retained ghillie, I personally think it's damn nearly a dead duck job in the UK as a whole, never mind in England where I currently live and largely work. I would not be surprised if I'm of the last generation who can actuually muster a meagre wage out of the job. Scotland has a surviving chance - just about - but the writing has long been on the wall with the final call bells already ringing, much to our chagrin

[Barbelbonce]

It is a shame that I have eaten, a while ago,my last Atlantic Salmon, ever.

I can remember, clearly, the ONLY time I ever ate wild Scottish salmon - in about 1962.
It was collected from the local railway station, on the line direclly out of King's Cross where it had arrived overnight from Scotland, sent by a friend of my Grandfather, I believe. It arrived, as caught, with a brown parcel label tied round its wrist. Much fuss of this delicacy was made; the then classic presentation of poaching, skinning very carefully so as not to damage the flesh, left bone-in, dressed with very finely sliced cuke carefully laid on to represent scales and served with home-made mayonnaise. It was well worth the effort and I remember it lasting several days.
Back then, lots of food was transported that way. I used to go to school through Kings X and in season, there were trains of very heavy wooden trolleys, with very noisy steel wheels, pulled by 3-wheeler Scammel Scarabs, carrying game and geese from Scotland, all labelled to the local r'way station of the recipient.

Tons and tons of it. Days long gone.
Mike

[Olly]

I had one quite a few years back from the Till, my first salmon. Shared between myself, my bros-in-law and mum-in-law. Both living near the river - and never had one to eat!