Monday 27th July: Work at home on the laptop on the new edition of the Management Plan - this sort of thing is much better done without interuptions.

Tuesday 28th July: The RTC committee in the morning, for discussions on Spring Salmon policy. Supposed to be going electric-fishing tomorrow, but just not sure of the conditions after so much rain - and more forecast. Go and have a look at the prospective site - would be better if the water was lower, but doable though at lower efficiency. More admin in the afternoon - everyone else out electric-fishing at a Windfarm site.

Wednesday 29th July: Kenny rained off as well, so discussed trap repairs with him as well as got various bits of writing done. In the afternoon to the engineers to see the new trap box for Tweedsmuir and give final details. Back in the office read up on acoustic tracking work that is being done. There's been a great step forward in the Pacific North-west of the U.S. where a couple of smolts have been sucessfully tracked from the headwaters of the Columbia river right out along the coast to Alaska. This has been made possible by lines of detectors laid out from the coast which is being used to track marine fishes as well as salmonids. The inevitable surprises from such new techniques have been, firstly, that smolt survival in the hydro-dammed Columbia river was no worse that that in the undammed Fraser and secondly, that around 40% of the smolts died shortly after reaching salt water. Our proposed smolt tracking work will only be in the river and estuary, but one day perhaps, it will be possible to track Tweed salmon smolts all the way to the Norwegian coast and Sea-trout smolts all the way to the Waddenzee.

Thursday 30th July: Up to the Tweedsmuir trap with Sean to start on the repairs, but the water higher than I'd been told ,so little done. To the engineers in Gala, where the new box is being made and checked measurements - they've made it a bit wider than the plans given to them and there's really no spare room at the site, so it will have to be narrowed back to the plan width. In the office in the afternoon, adding 2008 catch data to the spreadsheets. Can see a definite trend in Sea-trout catches becoming earlier, from Autumn dominance to Summer. Could be something to do with wetter Summers.

Friday 31st July: On leave.