Monday 29th October : On leave to fish at Lower Pavilion with a cousin of mine who is in the syndicate there. Water up but dirty, saw a good few fish but nothing caught.

Tuesday 30th October : Office in the morning then drove up to Pitlochry with James for a joint meeting of the SFCC (Scottish Fisheries Co-ordination Centre) and the Biologists' Group of RAFTS (Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland). Worked on my talks in the Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory's library in the afternoon.

Wednesday 31st October:  Joint SFCC / RAFTS meeting. Gave one talk on how we use our fisheries management plan on the Tweed and another on what is known about the impacts of European Beaver on rivers and fish  (their introduction to Scotland having been in the news lately). Find myself convenor of a RAFTS working group on Beavers afterwards. Leave the annual dinner early to see the film of Ettrick salmon spawning on BBC 1 at 9.00pm but find football on instead.

Thursday 1st November : Second day of the meeting. Two very interesting genetics talks. One from the Argyll Fisheries Trust showing how even Salmon on small rivers can be divided into distinct breeding populations by lochs and waterfalls and how the home rivers of Salmon caught at a coastal, mixed-stock, fishery can be identified. The other, from Dr. Eric Verspoor was on the uses of genetic stock identification in Salmon management and on the plans being formulated for pilot projects and national surveys on Salmon genetics. Knowing how many stocks of Salmon there are in the Tweed and what their home areas will transform management here - we will, for instance, be able to group electric-fishing results by type of adult i.e. will be able to see what trends there are in juvenile numbers in the home areas of Spring, Summer and Autumn running fish separately.

Friday 2nd November : The monthly joint staff meeting of the RTC & TF today, the first Friday of the month. The draft Health & Safety procedures introduced and taken away for comment and inputs.