THE salmon season started yesterday and the fish are leaping on the River Severn - but many fishermen will wait another three months before they cast their lines.

The reason is the Environment Agency's catch-and-release policy, which means that all salmon caught before June 16 must be thrown back.

Its aim is to protect the fish stocks, but many anglers believe it is misguided.

"I think too much of the salmon is catch-and-release," said Keith Feeney, who is chairman of Diglis Anglers Salmon Society.

"I feel the policy should be dropped. There is no shortage of salmon and a lot of those caught and put back will die anyway.

"Salmon is a game fish. They will put up a fight and once they have used up their excess energy and gone past the point of no return, it is very difficult to revive them."

He said anglers had sometimes persevered for over an hour trying to bring fish round, but they had gone back into the water dead.

Mr Feeney is not convinced that salmon stocks have improved as a direct result of the Agency's five-year River Severn Salmon Action Plan, introduced in 2003.

"The stocks go in cycles. Twenty years ago we had three very bad eight-month seasons, when the catches were 42, 77 and 49.

"The year before catch-and-release we had over 200 at Diglis and last season we had 146 fish between June 16 and the end of the season."

The number of fish caught is only a tiny fraction of those in the river.

"In the last seven or eight years there have been loads of fish in the Severn. You can have five or six hundred going past you at Diglis and you might not even catch one," he said.

Mr Feeney believes there is another anomaly in salmon fishing policy, which allows salmon to be netted in the Severn estuary from June 1, although anglers cannot take fish for two more weeks.

"To protect the springers they should not allow any fishing until June 16," he said.

How the fish are protected

THE River Severn Salmon Action Plan, introduced by the Environment Agency in 2003, is part of a national strategy to protect and improve salmon stocks.

Measures have been taken to improve the quality of the water, protect nursery and spawning areas and build fish passes to enable salmon to bypass weirs.

Salmon are also reared in a hatchery at Clywedog Dam, Wales, and released into the river annually.

Environment Agency spokesman Peter Crankshaw said: "Thousands of fish are reared and moved on, but they are subject to the vagaries of nature,

natural predators and mortality rates.

"We are giving them the best chance we can, to ensure the best for the salmon and the anglers."

Salmon caught and returned carefully to the water had a good chance of surviving and spawning to sustain stocks, said Mr Crankshaw.

"Swallowed hooks can be a problem, but we are asking anglers to use circle hooks, which do less damage," he said.

"It is true salmon can be netted from June 1, but the netting season ends in August, whereas anglers can take fish from June 16 to October 7."