Living in this time and age we decided, as an experiment, to ask ChatGTP.

We tagged along with Thomas Johansson, Secretary of general at the Baltic Salmon Fund, to his backyard river to try and find some spawners

I started fly fishing for salmon when Sweden had some really good years with some good runs and now, I am experiencing some bad ones. Some say salmon fishing haven’t been this bad for more than 30 years. So why is that and what can I do?

To do a recap of the fishing in July and close to the first half of August, is not terribly difficult. We could summarize it as hot as hell for a bigger part of the period. Depending on which river valley, the water temperature has been between 16 and 24 degrees Celsius, which all of you know doesn’t make for some great salmon fishing.

So, June has come to an end, meaning that about a third of the salmon season has now passed. We have spent a lot of time by the rivers, and like so many others, being overwhelmed by frustration and hopelessness but also convinced that there are glimpses of hope out there.

Midsummer is a salmon fishing classic up north. Those bright nights are nothing short of magical and not so many years ago this was when the salmon season was considered to kick off for real.

Is this just a bump in the road or a result of poor management at sea and in the rivers? With that said, we reached out to people and companies who all depend on a strong wild salmon stock in our rivers, and we are very proud of having their support!

— It looks like our pre-season fears are coming true. The runs are really slow and at the moment we don’t see any signs of change. The reports we are receiving from our network, out at sea, from the costal fisheries and from the wild rivers all points in the same directions – there are just so few salmon around these days.

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