Relationship between freshwater angling catch of Atlantic salmon and stock size in the River Bush, Northern Ireland

Abstract

Over 25 years rod catches of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar increased proportionately as stock size increased (r2=0·581, P<0·001), with no overall trend between exploitation rate and stock size (r2=0·016, P>0·5). On a 15 year sub‐set of these data annual effort (P=0·804) and flow (P=0·339) had little significance relative to stock size (P<0·01) on variation in rod catches. Stock size, time, effort and flows had no influence on inter‐annual variation of rod exploitation rate (r2=0·094, P=0·880). Pairwise correlation between variables confirmed these results. In 1998, weekly effort contributed significantly to overall catch variation (P<0·001), while weekly flow did not (P=0·438). These results are discussed in relation to the utility of rod catch data for deriving estimates of stock for spawning target compliance purposes.