Monday 25th August: Return a supposedly serviced and repaired electric-fishing machine, which doesn't actually work, to the electricians in Pitochry and spend the rest of the day reading through the reports Kenny has written up for the TTGI clubs. These are now finished and can be copied and distributed
Tuesday 26th August: The Nissan needing a new steering column, which has to come from Japan, we are down to two vehicles. First job is to arrange van hire for the next two days as I have to get around a bit. Spend the day in the office wrestling with the budget for the Euro project, trying to get the budgetting I have done under practical headings into the categories needed for the InterReg. Not easy at all. All the others succesfully out electric-fishing, so beginning to get some progress made.
Wednesday 27th August: Get the hire car in the morning. In the afternoon, out to the Meggat Reservoir for a meeting with Scottish Water, SEPA and various consultants about the fish pass into St. Mary's Loch. We have been suspicious of the efficiency of this for a number of years as the numbers of salmon fry we have found at sites upstream of the lochs have been very variable - although the last two years have given good results and 2007 the best ever. Agree that the way forward is for video monitoring of the outflow channels to make sure that fish of all sizes can use these, rather than go straight to fish pass alterations. Have now to draw up a monitoring proposal with SEPA.
Thursday 28th August: Out early to give the Peebles trap its weekly clean. Not able to do the usual maintenance work there there this summer, with the water being so high - and still too high. Back at the office started wrestling with a Euro budget for the North Sea Sea-trout work and spent most of the day at it, before starting on the monitoring proposal for St. Mary's Loch access, agreed yesterday. All the others out electric-fishing, though James back early to finish off a Wind Farm Impact Assessment report. Off to the Boatmens Meeting in the evening.