Monday 17th November - On Leave

Tuesday 20th November: Catch up on e-mails, then start a scale-reading checking session with Barry - all this week is designated for scales work. In the afternoon down to fish at The Lees, by invitation of the Chairman, who acts as boatman.  Mild, water clear and in good condition, but not many fish thought to be in the area as water levels have been so high. One second after the "boatman" advised me to let the line come right round behind the boat as "that is often when they take" and I did so, a fish took ! An amazing example of success immediately following advice. Was a nice little cock Grilse about 4lbs, so taken for the pot.

Wednesday 21st November: Scale-reading with Barry all day. He's got the difficult ones from 2007 marked down in the database and we do what we can to work out the patterns. Some are, however, just not understandable. Most scales are easy to read, it's the difficult ones that take practice to do properly.

Thursday 22nd November: Another scale-reading day - and finish checking 2007. A sudden flurry of activity in the afternoon as we are notified by RAFTS that the consultation period on proposed licencing of eel fisheries in Scotland ends today. Not heard of this proposal before. Get the papers and find that they only mention one Eel Management "Basin" covering the whole of Scotland. This is news to us as well, as we have been working with the Environment Agency as part of the SolwayTweed River "Basin", on the Eel Management plan for it. Indeed, only a couple of days ago, I was 'phoned by the EA person doing this plan for a final consultation on the conservation measures to be in it, and what Eel monitoring sites we could operate on the Tweed. So, the EA think we are part of the SolwayTweed Basin for Eel management purposes while FRS,apparently, think we are part of the Scotland Basin. I suspect that FRS have just forgotten that there are two Water Framework Directive "Basins" for Scottish waters. They also forgot the Tweed when advertising the new controls on fish movements earlier this year, their advice notes & publicity said that the new controls applied to all of Scotland & caused a fair amount of confusion with people in the Tweed catchment wanting to stock fish.  The Eel fishery licencing proposals are also a problem, as they could mean Scottish Ministers licencing fisheries in England, if the Tweed as a whole is taken, as it sometimes is, as a Scottish Fishery District. However, this would mean that English fishers in North Northumberland would be disenfranchised as they have no representation at Holyrood. For matters controlled by the RTC, on the other hand, they do have the English commissioners to represent their interests. Get this all across to RAFTS for the reply to the proposals

Friday 21st November: Weekly staff meeting in the morning, some data entry and then preparing a farewell lunch for David Dunkley, the former Inspector of Salmon Fisheries who has just retired and has helped us much over the years. I cooked the fish I caught on Tuesday for this, and very nice it was too. Food has been much in evidence in the tea-room this week - we have just got a staff "In - Out" board which we have to change to show where we are. It's a 20p fine in the "Sin-Tin" for forgetting, the proceeds of which go to the biscuit fund. As no-one seems to be able to remember to do the board, the biscuits have been flowing. More data entry afterwards, getting this season's results from the electric-fishing of the Ettrick and Yarrow sorted