[Kev Danby]

Quick question to all you Salmon Guru's.

Rivers that have several runs of fish

Springers enter the river early season, my understanding is they then stay there until whenever it is they spawn with the rest of the salmon run (summer and Autum fish) which I presume is the later months Oct-Dec. Those that survive make their way back to the sea.

Does this mean the fish will only be a springer the first time they run as they surely dont have enough time to recondition and make the following spring run or do they miss a year or become a summer/autum run fish?

Or do they spawn earlier and return to sea.

Hope that makes sense.

[Hamish Young]

I think I see what you're asking there Kev.

It's generally accepted that most but not all rivers have Salmon entering the system every month of the year, but typically these runs are grouped into 'spring''summer' and back-end runs. Certainly, there is some continuity in terms of numbers and times fish run which is why we have those terms at all.

It's not exclusively true, but springers do tend to spawn in different places than the other runs of fish.
They do indeed stay in the system until a common spawing time, but again it's generally accepted that they do spawn a wee bit earlier than their later running counterparts, but not much.

If they survive spawning and make it back to sea, then they do indeed return a year later - so they miss the next years 'run' as you suggest.

Cool isn't it 

Hamish 

[sightbob]

 hamish is spot on as far as anyone knows.