The time series for retained rod catch runs from 1952 to the most recently published season. The data are the summations of reports from individual fisheries. No attempt has been made to correct for non-returns or incomplete information held in the register of proprietors and occupiers. We have no comprehensive time series of fishing effort information associated with the rod & line fishery.

Reported catches are provided at the finest geographical (fishery district) and time (month) scales consistently available. Fishery districts correspond either to a single river catchment together with adjacent coast or to groups of neighbouring river catchments and associated coastline. Districts may be further aggregated into Regions. (Collecting the Marine Scotland Salmon and Sea Trout Fishery Statistics Topic Sheet #67, http://www.gov.scot/Topics/marine/Publications/TopicSheets/tslist). Districts are characterised by Name, District ID and Report Order. Ordering the data with respect to “Report Order” sorts the Districts spatially. Districts are ordered counter-clockwise starting with the Tweed as Report Order 1.

The categories by which sea trout data have been reported have varied through the time series (Topic Sheet #67.)
Finnock catches have been reported since 2004.Finnock are sea trout which have spent less than a year at sea and making their first return to fresh water. They may also be known as whitling or herling.

Catches of farmed salmon and grilse have been reported since 1994.