Monday 18th June : Catching up with e-mails etc. after being away for a week. The Ettrick fish counter is back in Edinburgh having been repaired in Iceland.

Tuesday 19th June : In the Berwick Magistrates' Court, to give evidence in a prosecution brought by the RTC about possession of 28 drift nets. I had identified the scales on these as being Salmon and Sea-trout, which evidence was not contested, but I could not say how long the scales had been off the fish, a week or a year. In the end, the prosectution failed, the magistrates accepting the defence that there had been a legitimate reason for the defendant to have been in possession. Work on the management manual in the afternoon. James tells me the fish counter can now not be found in Edinburgh by DHL, so hopes for an early re-installation are dashed.

Wednesday 20th June : Out collecting up Salmon scale packets from the sample beats in the morning, while Steven does more analysis of the temperature datalogger results. In the afternoon, the entire Tweed Foundation turns out to do an angling survey of the Dye Water. I've  been through all the old books on trout fishing and collected what ever information they had on trout catches and we are now looking to repeat some of these angling trips recorded from the past to see what sort of catches we can get nowadays. Unfortunately, after the heavy rain the river is well up and peaty as ink so fishing is marginal but we go ahead anyway though obviously not able to properly repeat a past trip under such conditions. Get a few and so some scale samples at least. The Ettrick counter, having been searched for by DHL  in Brussels and the English Midlands now turns up back in Iceland, probably never having left.

Thursday 21st June :  Took more equipment down to the estuary for the first attempts at trapping next week.

Friday 22nd June : Usual staff meeting in the morning, then in the afternoon off to Pitlochry to collect electric-fishing gear after annual service and swap-over with remaining gear - it is never serviced all at the same time.

Next week : James is on leave, Kenny is away on Monday and is then working on angling surveys.