Monday 7th July: A meeting at the Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory, Faskally, to discuss the sampling strategy for the salmon genetics survey this summer. There needs to be tissue taken from 50 fish at each site and as each costs £20 to analyse the DNA, a site costs £1000 in all. A big catchment like the Tweed will need a lot of sites to cover it, so the sampling strategy has to be as cost effective as possible. Afterwards, leave the electric-fishing gear at the local electricians in Pitlochry for its annual check.
Tuesday 8th July: Drafting out the genetics sampling strategy most of the day. Looks like it will be a minimum of 36 sites needed, sampled over the next two years. As well as defining the nursery areas of different populations of salmon by analysing the DNA of Fry, samples from adults need to be taken as well. Matching adults to nursery areas will show what nursery areas are producing Spring Salmon, Autumn Grilse etc. etc. One of the points of interest will be to see if large fish come from particular areas or not. Scales from a 10.75lb Sea-trout caught at the end of June read today - it had clearly spawned last Winter but had put massive growth on since. It couldn't have been a March kelt, just not enough time for such growth so must have been a November one.
Wednesday 9th July: More admin in the office for me. James & Sean the Summer Assistant out in the morning on the Borthwick Water, electric-fishing with some residents who had expressed concerns to the their MSP last year about an apparent lack of fish in the river. However, James found good numbers of salmon, setting their minds at rest. One side burn did, though, have a lack of fish - easily explicable by a major pile of debris blocking access into it.
Thursday 10th July : Out with Steven to give the Peebles trap its weekly clean and work out some improvements we will try and make this summer, if the water levels fall, and then up to the Tweedsmuir trap to collect the temperature datalogger for downloading. These high water levels have already delayed fieldwork and if they continue much longer will reduce the programme for the year.
Friday 11th July: Weekly staff meeting in the morning, then another in the afternoon to finalize the arrangments for the Kelso show. More work on the planning of the genetics work, sorting out the funding etc. Being washed out for fieldwork means more indoor work for the summer assistants - Steven is going through a large collection of "Trout and Salmons" from the 1970's to list the Tweed articles & Sean is getting to grips with the backlog of scale reading data entry.