POACHING on the River Tweed reduced last year, with net seizures the lowest in the last 15 years, according to the River Tweed Commission annual report.
The drop has been put down to the success of court orders, good policing of the river by water bailiffs and bad weather.
Water bailiff, Supt Tony Coleman said in the report: "Following the trend in recent years, there was an initial rise of ille
gal activity at the start of the year in the estuary involving those well known to the water bailiff team. This quickly subsided as policing presence allied to prohibition orders, bail conditions and suspended sentences acted as effective deterrents.
"Additionally, fish movement was observed to be sporadic through the first part of the year, principally due to variable water conditions. Weather and river conditions played a part throughout the remainder of the year and this was a factor in illegal activity being well contained."
Seven cases of poaching were taken to the courts by the commission in 2009, five to the magistrates courts and two to the Procurator Fiscal.
A total of 62 nets were recovered last year, compared to 99 in 2008.
Between April and August, the number of nets recovered was the lowest on record.
In addition to policing the river, the team of water bailiffs conducted inspections of individual fisheries' catch records and Gyrodactylus Salaris books, which record that anglers have declared that their fishing gear is free from the risk of bringing the disease to the river.
Bailiffs and other commission staff were issued with personal locators last year after a health and safety review highlighted the dangers of working alone.
The locators are fitted with an emergency activation button which sends out alerts to staff mobile phones by text message, emails certain addresses, and maps the location of the person carrying the locator.
The annual report said: "The system worked well, with tests of units for emergency response showing accurate location reports. Some areas with inadequate mobile phone coverage still allowed an estimated probable location as the system logs the last true position of the unit, thus providing a trail to follow."
