Monday 19th October : Finally get the budget for the European funding of our Sea-trout work under the Living North Seas programme into a form that can mesh with our own budget, and without the movements around the spreadsheet giving all sorts of wrong totals. In the afternoon down to  Wooler to follow up a sighting of a Bullhead in the river there - been trying to do this for two years, this is the third attempt this year, the others having been flooded off. Have an assistant from Natural England  to do this. The Wooler Water has been completely devastated by the floods of the last couple of years, two this year, and is now an ugly gash of tumbled boulders and sand, lined with raw, open, banks. Not the sort of place, now, that you would expect Bullheads to live. Found just about everything else - masses of trout and salmon fry and parr (so obviously the floods had not been a problem for them), a Grayling fry, a Gudgeon, a 10" trout and several Eels. The surviving, old, sediments had lampey larvae and we even got a couple of Macropthalmia, the eyed, adult, form into which the larvae metamorphose. As these were both over 140mm they can be assumed to be Brook Lamprey rather than the migratory River Lamprey, whose juvenile stages do not reach that size. Afterwards, to look at Haughead Ford, upstream of Wooler. This has been overwhelmed by the floods and the fish pass in it has had to be cleared out. It's now passable, but the whole river is now very unstable and there's masses of gravel on the move, so it,s only a short term respite.

Tuesday 20th October: Out with Kenny to work on the Peebles and Tweedsmuir fish traps, to get them in order for the season. Normally we would start trapping on the 1st October, but there's no point this year, nothing's moving at these water levels - which gives us time to catch up on the maintenance. On the way back go to check on the Selkirk Cauld and find it alive with fish running on the few inches of extra water. Never seen so many on the underwater camera before - the pool below the cauld is still very small, so they're concentrated there.  A lot of good Brown-trout as well. There's been around 450 through the counter the past couple of days.

Wednesday 21st October: To a meeting at SEPA Galashiels on water releases from some of the local reservoirs. The traditional release patterns have been reviewed under the Water Framework Directive, and  those from the Talla, Fruid and Whiteadder found not to meet the new criteria. This was therefore a discussion between SEPA, Scottish Water, SNH and ourselves on how the releases could be better designed, the constraint being the supply needed from these reservoirs. The Whiteadder was the difficult one, Talla and Fruid were relatively easy to find better release patterns for. Afterwards, out to the Peebles trap to get on with the repairs and maintenance and set it up in expectation of the 3" of rain in the forecast - far too low at present on this burn for fish to move. Another hundred and fifty or so through the Ettrick counter.

Thursday 22nd October: Out all day at the Peebles and Tweedsmuir traps. The 3" of rain did not arrive, so nothing in (or probably near) the Peebles trap. Different at Tweedsmuir - the burn there always has a good water supply and in shape it's a generally deeper stream so although there was only a sniff of new water, there were seven good Brown-trout in the trap, including a male of 580mm and four females of 450-550mm. Got on well with the repairs there as well. Told the fish for this burn are visible in the main river at present, waiting just upstream of the confluence. They may keep on coming even without any new water, so the trap will now be run and checked regularly.  Another couple of  hundred through the Ettrick counter today - and a couple of hundred through the Gala, so things are beginning to speed up at last.

Friday 23rd October: Weekly meeting in the morning, then out with Kenny to look at a possible new site for a trout trap that he's spotted  on a small burn of the Ale system.  Looks to be a very good place for one, which would be run by a local volunteer  and would give the first trapping information from the Teviot. Out to the other traps with Kenny after lunch and  get the one on the Kirkburn set up. This has particular interest as a trap was run on this burn in the 1970's during an Edinburgh University study and today's results can be compared with those of 30 years ago. More fish at the Tweedsmuir trap, three in the 40 & 50cms and three in the 30 cms. Started taking genetics samples from these as part of the Living North Seas work.