Saturday 1st November: On traps duty this week, so to the Peebles & Cardrona traps. I was on leave last week, apart from Friday giving the RAFTS presentation at the Fisheries Research Forum at Perth, so missed all the high water here. Kenny briefed me on getting back about the damage at the different traps, some of which had had to be removed because of the very high water conditions. The Peebles trap had survived intact, and one small trout in it. Some damage at the Cardrona, but still functioning - about a dozen trout in that, some takeable size. On the way up called in to re-start the computer of the Gala fish counter, which had siezed up in some way and couldn't be started remotely by James from the office before he went on leave yesterday. Had to switch the power off to get it to reach again and got it going.

Sunday 2nd November: Checked the Gala counter remotely from the office and found it disconnected from the scanner again and not able to get it to connect again. As it is locked in a local garage, not able to get at it till Monday. Only a couple of fish at Cardrona and none at Peebles.

Monday 3rd November: Kenny covering for me at the traps today, as I have to prepare for a meeting on Beavers with SNH this afternoon. Talk him through re-starting the Gala counter over the phone while he is on the way back from the traps and it starts working again. Kenny then off to the major fish rescue on the Bowmont where the river is being put back into its channel after last month's huge spate. Post the monthly fish counter results on this site - more fish up the Gala in October than in the whole of last year, which is a distinct puzzle. Off to Edinburgh with Nick and Andrew Douglas-Home the Chairman to meet with SNH's policy adivisor on Beavers. Do the standard presentation on the scientific literature which shows that Beaver dams can be serious problems for salmon and actually exclude them from spawning in smaller streams except during unusually wet Autumns. A reality quite different from the bland assurances given in some quarters that there is no problem at all. Back to the office - Kenny comes in from the fish rescue, about 200 adult Salmon and Sea-trout removed from the new course of the river, over the fields, and put back in to the old channel, which will allow them to get upstream. Things have been so delayed by all the permissions etc required that we have ended up having to electric-fishing females that are are very close to spawning - not a good thing to do at all and one which we very much try to avoid. Also, silt having formed in the new watercourse, lamprey larvae had moved in but impossible to get those out. If action had been immediate, as we wanted, neither of these problems would have occurred.

Tuesday 4th November: The annual joint budget meeting of the RTC Committee and the TF Trustees in the morning. Catching up on e-mails after lunch when I get a phone call to say the fish counter screen at the Philiphaugh Salmon Viewing Centre is blank. Grab the manual and set out & manage to fix it without having to phone James (on holiday in Spain) which is a great relief. Pick up a nice collection of scale packets from Fairnilee, which is catching well at present and on up to the traps. Twenty-one in the Cardrona trap, two takeable sized males, one under-sized male and the rest immature. Why immature fish run up burns along with the spawning fish, I do not understand - perhaps the excitement carries them along. We don't electric-fish in Winter, but I do wonder what we would find in these small burns if we did, perhaps a very different sort of population from that which inhabits them in Summer. Nothing in the Peebles trap, the "magic" water level needed to get the Sea-trout up that burn not being met at the moment. Kenny at TweedStart all day - and then doing invertebrate sample sorting with some of the TTGI angling club volunteers in the evening.

Wednesday 5th November: In the office in the morning, working on a comparison of the ecological status classifications SEPA have made for the various water bodies of the Tweed with what our fish data indicates. In the afternoon out to the traps - a bad moment in Selkirk when find the shop we get our long, waterproof gloves from has closed. Working in fast-flowing cold water at fish traps with bare fingers is really not very nice - and no good when you need flexible fingers for taking scales etc.  When the Ettrick fish counter was new, I found one freezing February, that the scanner had gone blank and discovered that a plastic feed bucket was stuck in it, hollow side upstream, so it was like a plug. As I didn't know then that February was the month with no fish, I desperately tried to get it out while keeping relatively dry, but it was no good, and I had to more or less to plunge  in to my shoulders to get it out, which took a desperate struggle against the current. On getting back to the bank, I had tears in my eyes with the pain as the circulation came back into my hands and arms and stamping around to get warm again, was accosted by a local Selkirk angler who, ignoring my obvious state of agony, took the opportunity to interrogate me about the life-cycle of the salmon, what parr ate etc etc., which I answered through chattering teeth (the only time I've really experienced this curious phenomenon). In all my time at the Foundation, this was the second closest  that I have come to telling a member of the public where to go and what to do with themselves. Ten small fish in the Cardrona trap, only one large enough to be a mature male. Nothing in the Peebles trap, still below the magic water level. Huge relief though, that the hardware shop in Peebles had the right gloves for trap working  - it's an amazing shop, with every gadget and material that you can think of, and many that you can't.

Thursday 6th November:  Finished comparisons of SEPA Water Framework classifications of Tweed water bodies with our fish data and sent it off to the co-ordinator. Out to the traps in the afternoon, another eight small fish at Cardrona, only one of which was a mature male, the rest immature.

Friday 7th November: Monthly joint RTC / TF staff meeting in the morning. Data entry the rest of the morning and out to do the traps in the afternoon. Small runs through the Ettrick and Gala counters today.