Fish counter results for October 2008 (attached)

The Ettrick count was well above the month's average, the first time this year this has been case for any month, but the big surprise was the October count for the Gala, which was over 600 more than than the total for the whole of last year. How a single monthly total could be more than a whole year's is difficult to explain. Last year was a very dry Autumn after a wet Summer, while this year has been continuously wet since July which could be at least part of the explanation. Another, rather worrying, possibility is that the recent improvements to the fish ladder have made it much easier for fish to get up. The implication of this would be that previously large numbers of fish were failing to get through, even though the juvenile numbers for Salmon and Trout found in the Gala catchment have always been very good. Relatively few fish  produce very large numbers of eggs (e.g. 200 x 70cms female salmon will give around a million eggs) so even if the fish ladder had been keeping large numbers of fish out, more than enough to fully stock the Gala were obviously getting through. If this has been the case, all the fish ladders in the catchment will have to be similarly checked in the way the Gala one was. Perhaps the simplest explanation, however,  is that either last year was just a particularly poor year for Gala fish or that this year is an exceptionally good one.