Monday 12th November : Office all day, catching up on e-mails from the days I was away last week. Checking through the reports on the temperature data collected on the Ettrick and Yarrow which Steven is writing up and the Trout and Grayling Initiative report that Kenny is working on. The four days of extra water we asked for from Meggat last week has not resulting in any apparent extra fish through the Selkirk counter but SEPA phone to say that they need to put down a standard freshet this week anyway as the river is so low and will just add an extra day to the four days rather than switch the pipes off and on.

Tuesday 13th November : Working on the management manual all morning, then down river over lunch to collect up scale packets from the sampling fisheries. Editing Kenny's and Steven's reports in the afternoon, then up the Ettrick with Steven to see the BBC in action, filming spawning salmon for their AutumnWatch programme. They'd been there since Friday and said there had been a lot of action over the weekend, but nothing much going on now. Spawning should really be over this far up the river by now. Some males around and one female holding station over a redd but no actual spawning behaviour.

Wednesday 14th November : Work on the management manual most of the day, collected scales from Boleside at lunchtime. Photos e-mailed from the BBC to check their identifications of male and female (last night managed to correct their interpretation of the word "redd" - they had thought it derived from the colour of spawning fish. The good Scots verb "redding" was new to them !). A press query in about dead fish on the Gala. Also getting reports of dead fish on the Ettrick so the low water may be beginning to cause stress.

Thursday 15th November :   Management manual all morning, and most of the afternoon, then checking reports written by James and Steven. James went out this morning with the "Camera on a pole" that we have got for checking trout burns for larger fish in their hiding holes and took some amazing video of a mass of Salmon held up below a small tributary (no names for security reasons). Contacted the BBC about this and they are thinking of buying some of the footage for the AutumnWatch programme. Finally got the October count totals from James today too - 2996 for the Ettrick and 754 for the Gala.  The delay has been due to the difficulty of checking the Gala pictures which have been made fuzzy by algal growth on the camera lens and on the pale background in the camera chamber.