Monday 14th September: Out electric-fishing the bottom of the Ettrick, with Sean. Immediately hit some good numbers, with some sites in Selkirk producing more than 60 fry in the five minutes - and big ones too, many in the 70mm range.  A lot of parr as well, though we don't specifically try to catch them, and only take them if they get in the net more or less by themselves - we concentrate on the fry. Usually the best numbers in this zone are from around Lindean, right at the bottom, but though those were good, the best samples were further upstream this time. Looking back at previous results, we haven't had figures as high as these in this zone since 1998. Also find out about netting tomorrow - today is the last day of the netting season, and we've hired a netting station and crew to catch fish for tagging for the first few days after the end of the season since 1997 and it all seems to be on, with a 10.30 start.

Tuesday 15th September:  Go down to the nets at Paxton House to start the netting, while the others carry on with the electric-fishing. The delays due to the weather have meant that these two Management Plan programmes have collided this year - usually the electric-fishing is over by the 14th, so time is clear for the netting. It's actually a head-on collision as we don't have enough people to get two electric-fishing teams out today as Barry is on his day job, so James and Kenny go off up the Ettrick and Sean comes down to the nets with me. It's a beautiful sunny, calm day, really nice - but useless for netting, except for blind and deaf fish.  The uselessness factor is further increased by the fact that the tide is both small and in the morning and that the water level is at the very maximum that is fished here. Every netting station has / had its own special conditions when it does/did best in terms of water level, wind etc. However, today for the first time hear that some netting stations (e.g. Milne Graden) were best during spates, even of 12ft or so, when slack areas could be fished when no other stations could even operate. The inevitable result of today's conditions at Paxton  was a just a single Sea-trout for the morning.

Wednesday 16th September:  An hour of data entering in the office while two teams  go out to finish off the electric-fishing of the Ettrick, then down to the nets. Overcast and a slightly lower water level, so better conditions. Still not a great tide. Get seven fish in the first shot, four Salmon and three Sea-trout, which causes a bit of a rush as I don't have an assistant today. All in good condition and sea-liced, so good to see. Get them tagged safely in front of a small audience. Only a couple of Sea-trout for the rest of the session. Back to the office for more electric-fishing data entry.

Thursday 17th September: Down to the nets at midday. Another nice day - except for netting. Too bright and still again. Just got a couple of salmon, which was precisely what the crew predicted we would get for the conditions. One was nice, fat, 10lb fish though.

Friday 18th September: Down to the nets again at midday, to find some excitement amongst the crew, pointing down the river. It was very calm, a very smooth surface and they were seeing fish "coming forward". Netsmen can do this, but I can't - I can never see what it is they are seeing. Eventually I did see some very mild disturbance on the surface but was told that was the tail wash and that that fish was past already. The net was got out, but snagged a bit, and though there was great anticipation, there was nothing in the shot. Nothing in the next few, except a little grilse that got snagged and so couldn't be tagged, but it gave a party of schoolchildren something to see and touch. It was only 3lbs or so, but they thought it enormous. Just as well they left when they did, because a couple of shots afterwards, at the head of the tide, we got 14 salmon and one trout in the shot and things had to move pretty fast. Got them all tagged, bar one, which had some seal damage on it. Nothing  large, 3 to 9lbs. That's the way with netting - lots of blank shots or ones and twos and then the occasional good one.