Monday 4th June : An admin day in the office, while Steven did the last bits of preparation of the estuary trap.
Tuesday 5th June : Down to Whitesands to do more preparation of the site for the estuary trap. Got two of the anchors into position - as these are car tyres filled with concrete, could wheel them across the shore, but very muddy. Cleared the seaweed along the course that the leader nets will be set.
Wednesday 6th June : Management manual work in the morning, then Steven down to Hornecliffe to pick up a frozen Salmon caught last week that exuded some worms from its vent when caught and which I've been asked to look at. Meet with Kenny and James to co-ordinate the field work programme for the summer, which is very substantial this year. In the late afternoon go out with Steven to download some of the temperature dataloggers I have had in the Ettrick and Yarrow for the last year and a half as part of the work to try and understand why the numbers of Salmon fry in the Yarrow are generally lower than those in the Ettrick.
Thursday 7th June : The fish brought up from Hornecliff yesterday still thawing out in the morning, so start reading through the draft history of the early days of the RTC which has been produced by a volunteer author for the Bicentenary while Steven worked on the data downloaded from the temperature dataloggers yesterday. A visit from Assoc. Prof. Ron Woods of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, whose interests are in coastal waters and migratory fish populations, so an interesting session. Our fisheries management system here, of independent local boards and their financing always takes a good bit of explaining to visitors but they like the focus on local issues that the system gives - once they understand how it works. After a working lunch, finishing off the the draft history, out with Steven to download the rest of the dataloggers on the Yarrow and then open up the fish from Hornecliffe, now fully thawed out. Just a few Nematode worms near the vent, no signs of any other parasites or problems.
Friday 8th June : Weekly staff meeting in the morning, discussion mainly about the Border Union Show at Kelso in six weeks or so. Afterwards down to Coldstream, taking Barry with me, to where the others are netting the river. Far bigger catch than expected, so it got a bit busy. The bankside counts were 124 Grayling, up to 420mm, 4 Sea-trout, 69 Brown-trout, 44 of which were over 200mm (8") and 15 over 300mm (12"), three Flounders and one Eel of 710mm. Netting in such a wide channel only gets a small proportion of the total fish at the site, so inevitably a lot more escaped or were missed than were caught.
Next Week : Kenny is working with Tweedstart, teaching the children about river Invertebrates. Steven is doing bankside creel surveys. James is snorkelling for more netting sites and setting up electric-fishings sites and Sean is trapping crayfish on the Till and doing some checking of data on obstacles. I am on leave.