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Sale of the Century. The Atlantic Salmon Trust Auction

Our May 2003 contribution from Bill Drew

We all know that the Atlantic Salmon Trust campaigns nationally and internationally to protect the future of wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout. Regulating fishing off Greenland and the Faroes, articulating concerns on sea lice from salmon farms, promoting catch and release through research etc. Some of its funds come from its Annual auction. This year for the first time I gave it a go. I will explain from my personal experience why you should consider a bid next year if you are not already a supporter.

Following promotion of the Annual Atlantic Salmon Trust Auction by Simon on Fish and Fly I discussed the idea with Roger. To date the process has been great fun in a good cause. If I share some of our experiences perhaps you too can graduate from being an Atlantic Salmon Trust virgin. If you are already a supporter of the cause you may recognise some of the buzz of doing a little good and doing yourself a favour. We all know that the work of the trust is worthy but I can tell you why even the most self centred or cynical should bid next year.

Roger was all enthusiasm for entering into the bidding process for the Trust Auction. Let me first explain a little helpful background. Roger is my fellow angler for sporadic sorties including the Tweed , Dee and Tyne. The chap is a strange mixture of positive negativity. I recently used sarcasm to re-christened him, "The eternal optimist ", after a Tweed tube fly. To Roger the fish will not take, the river will be too low and his casting will be inadequate. The expedition is doomed before we start. Kit, selection of fly all will be in error. All of these statements are of course frequently incorrect but they seem to give him pleasure. His philosophy is to expect nothing and rejoice in surprise at any success. Naturally he was clear on the Auction. "Let’s bid "he said, "After all it will be a complete waste of time as all our bids are certain to fail."He was delighted at this prospect. Since he was doing most of the work I was content to go along with what he promised would be a pointless exercise. Roger proved to be wrong and naturally he was happy.

In my case I have many foibles. I am a sucker for catalogues. Times were hard when I was a youth ( lived in cardboard box in hole in ground etc…. tune from Hovis advert ) but seriously I used to scour catalogues for all the things I could not have and essential background information before making an infrequent minor purchase. For my mindset then the Atlantic Salmon Trust catalogue was a treat. It has a slight other worldliness about it. Phrases such as, "fine grayling to be found", "spring run sea trout", "peerless wild trout", "bids will only be accepted from those who attended Liberty & Livelihood March ", and "unspoilt stretch of about 500 yards single bank, overlooking water meadows", ring out. They hint at an old-fashioned time warp sending us back into an era of essential decency and good clean fun. The entries give a minimum recommended bid and then tease with enough information to tantalise but barely sufficient to justify a flutter from a tight wad like myself. Then the real fun began. Research had to undertaken in earnest.

Legendary rivers appear in the catalogue. Famous and unheard of beats are featured. Action was required. We hit the web sites to garner data. Many rivers such as they Dee and the Tweed had varying degrees of catch information and snippets that hinted at prime times and fallow spells. Some rivers were barely mentioned on the web. Next we fell upon the reference books. Finding some of the rivers on the map was the first challenge. Back copies of fishing magazines were then skimmed for more information. Fellow piscatorial types, take it from me, this is an ideal way to fill the fishing free post Christmas desert. I have read the Chat Rooms and clearly some of you guys have a fishing version of cabin fever. The Atlantic Salmon Trust Auction is ideally timed to help you through angling cold turkey. As I focussed on the possibilities offered by the Atlantic Salmon Trust Auction I was not only dreaming of fishing again as the season approached but also learning of new rivers, beats and landscapes. Salmon and sea trout predominate but excellent trout opportunities are liberally dispersed amongst the lots. Something for everyone.

After a series of telephone conferences we reached agreement on our choices and Roger sprang into action. Part of his research had been finding out how the whole thing worked. Armed with this we developed a strategy. We bid for a number of lots but listed our preference so that we would withdraw from our second choice if our prime bid was accepted and so on. We made 5 bids and always bid an odd number above the asking price, £62 for a £50 quoted item etc. Smug and eager we awaited the certain success of our efforts or rather I did. Roger of course was blissfully confident of our inevitable failure. Eventually the phone rang, "Roger here, great news, all of our bids were beaten. "I was a little non-pulsed, but Roger had a plan. As unsuccessful bidders we were allowed a first pass at the lots that were left. Starting the process again led to a flurry of activity and finally two successful bids.

This year we will fish the Spey for the first time. We believe we have a bargain and the donator of the beat has been civility itself. We will also have a day on a Dumfriesshire river, which will be new to us both. The name? ..... get your own catalogue next year at www.atlanticsalmontrust.org.

As the year progresses I’ll keep you informed.

Bill Drew lives in the Scottish Borders and can be contacted at bill.drew@lineone.net