Saturday 10th July: Down to the nets at Paxton to do more tagging. Told that yesterday had been the best day of their season so far, with over a hundred fish for the tide, mostly Sea-trout but with a score or so of Salmon. They also told me that they had released a number of Sea-trout and Salmon over the last week - coloured fish for which there is no market. The netsmen called these "droppers-down" and say they have been "rivered". I've seen these in the nets myself,  fish that have clearly been in fresh water for some time but have dropped right back in to the sea. Only a dozen or so fish tagged today, mainly Sea-trout, but a couple of small Salmon as well. An obvious swarm of smolts in the area as the netting started, the netsmen saying that there had been numbers all week, showing how slow downstream movement has been this year.

Monday 12th July: At the Freshwater Fisheries Lab., Faskally today, at a meeting of the group drafting the Code of Good Practice for Fisheries Management.

Tuesday 13th July: Supposed to be electric-fishing today, but the machine not repaired yet. In the afternoon downriver with Niall to download acoustic listening stations. Found two of the fish tagged on Saturday had made it as far as Ladykirk, one Salmon and one Sea-trout. This is the first time we've got any real movement straight after tagging, probably due to the bit of water in the river on Sunday.

Wednesday 14th July: To the trap at Tweedsmuir with Kenny to continue with the repairs and renovations while flows are low. The water actually rose slightly while we were there, but then started to fall. Took the temperature recorder from this trap back to the office to download - these operate for up to two years, taking the temperature once an hour.  Another box of tissue samples for the genetics work in from one of the beats that is collecting them - the aim is to have a range of samples for every 5lb class of fish in every month of the season - and in December and January as well. Once we have the juvenile samples taken from throughout the catchment analysed and mapped, we should be able to see where these adult fish were produced when their samples are analysed - and the type of adult fish (Spring, Summer, Autumn Salmon or Grilse) should then tell us which parts of the catchment are producing which sorts of fish. If it all works out as hoped, we'll in the future know whether we are electric-fishing the young of Spring or Autumn Salmon or Grilse etc. etc. when we do our juvenile surveys.

Thursday 15th July: Was supposed to be out electric-fishing today, but not only is the machine broken, the river is, at long last, in spate. In the office all day therefore, got my bits of the Annual Report written and got letters to landowners out about taking those remaining genetics samples from juveniles that can't be fitted into the ordinary electric-fishing work for this year, which is on the Till and the Teviot. Processed the data from the temperature datalogger downloaded yesterday and get the numbers that show just how much colder last winter was than our previous records.

Friday 16th July: Weekly staff meeting in the morning, then admin and correspondence in the afternoon.