Monday 8th December: An office day, answering e-mails, sorting meeting arrangements (last Thursday's cancelled meeting re-arranged for this Wednesday, then postponed again). No progress with the North Sea Sea-trout project - we've been told to come back in March - with some Germans. Got equipment together for tomorrow's attempt at sampling December fish.
Tuesday 9th December : Down to Kelso to take samples from December fish for the genetics survey. Three boatmen turning out with spinning rods to the do the catching & a bailiff to ensure that all is above board. A beautiful sunny day, getting warmer as it went on, but the river rather high and a bit coloured. No great expectations, however quite a busy day : 10.15 Start, 10.50 a miserable little Grilse, but so fresh the scales were loose; 10.50 a Brown-trout of about 14 oz, probably a mended male that had spawned some time ago, just a trickle of milt from it; 11.10 a red, unspawned hen, 75cms, ovipositor protruding so very likely to spawn locally; 11.50 a beautiful fresh hen, 79cms, very silver, with lice marks, gravid, ovipositor beginning to show; 12.00-12.45 lunch and then down to two rods; 13.00 another fresh hen, 82cms, ovipositor starting to show: 13.20 a fish lost; 13.25 a massive Kipper, 99cms, (25lbs at least, could have been 27 or 28, a very solid, thick fish) which gave a great deal of trouble on the small spinning rod. Almost too big for the anaesthetic tub, only fitted in diagonally; 14.15 end. A great bonus to have a genetics sample from this Kipper as a rather urgent management question for the Tweed is whether its very large fish are just the random extremes of many different populations or are specifically produced by just one or two populations. If the latter, then the nursery areas that produce such fish could be identified and a conservation plan for this type of fish produced. Not a bad catch in poor conditions from 200m of river bank - and five good samples.
Wednesday 10th December: Spend the day checking scale readings with Barry
Thursday 11th December: On leave to go to a seminar on 40 years of research on Loch Leven. I used to work at ITE who carried on this research and went out on one of their sampling runs to the loch, though my work was actually on Acid Rain effects on lochs. The news is basically good, the biological and chemical indicators all now more or less pointing in the right direction. Not much study of the fish though, a lot of stocking of Brown trout still going on.
Friday 12th December: On leave.