Monday 1st June: The quarterly RTC meeting in the morning, gave a presentation on Spring Salmon, which was followed by a general debate on policy for the next few years. There were frequently poor Spring catches  in the 1970's, 80's and 90's before 1998, the difference now being that the last 10 years have been very stable, so it is difficult to know if this year is just a one-off return to the past, or whether it is something new and different. Back to the office and dealt with a mass of small admin in the heat. Got a report from Kenny about the "Open Day" fishing on the upper Tweed on Saturday (to generate catch records) and am amazed to hear that some trout were actually caught under that blazing sun, one angler even reaching double figures! He then  amazed me even more by saying he'd caught a 2lb trout on the Yarrow today, while trying to catch some fish to show the local school.

Tuesday 2nd June: Total mobilisation out to net the river at Walkerburn, a site we've done before, but not last year due to the high water levels of last summer. The net goes well at the first site - its our, new, smaller, seine net this time which is a bit easier to handle in flowing water. We get over 200 fish, mostly salmon and trout parr, with numbers of 8" Grayling (1 year olds) and 6 & 7" trout (two years old) and a couple of large trout. The largest of these is 57cms long and is a Brown-trout. Some debate over the smaller, 3 lb or so one, could be a stale Sea-trout, but in perfect, fat, condition. Will find out from the scales. Again, what we don't find is trout around the 3/4lb mark. Lots of smaller, and a few bigger, but where does this size of trout live and what does it do ?  This sort of netting is very inefficient - we didn't get any adult Grayling, for example, but know they are in this pool and in the area - but it gives a general picture of what is around. Interesting too, to find such a large Brown-trout in a pool overlooked by houses - can't be much fishing pressure or if there is, this fish was pretty resistant to it. The new, small, 30m net is tried on a smaller pool further downstream but gets away from us and only a few parr are caught.

Wednesday 3rd June: Out in the morning to continue monitoring the population of Bullhead, an alien fish species that has got into a small burn near Ashkirk. The aim is to keep control of this population till some permanent solution can be found. Need low flow conditions to do this as have to distinguish the Bullhead in amongst the trout and salmon fry and parr, and haven't had such flows for a couple of Summers. No signs yet of the population having greatly increased its numbers or range, though have still to check the downstream boundary. Finished early as had to get down to Wooler with Kenny to set up our stand at the Glendale Childrens' Countryside Day. This was quite a logistical excercise as our "working model" of the Tweed, which sits over a large glass aquarium had been specially requested. The aquarium and stand need a trailer and the model needs a pick-up and all the other stuff needs its space as well. Down there by five and set up but took quite a time to fill the aquarium by hose from a tank lifted high by a tractor.

Thursday 4th June: On our way to Wooler by 07.00 has had to have time to electric-fish to stock the aquarium and get the invertebrates needed. No problem getting the fish, the Wooler Water being immediately behind the showground and found it completely stuffed with trout parr and fry despite the devastation of last September's massive spates that have completely blown its banks. Only one Salmon Parr though - Haughhead ford not far downstream is one of our recurring obstacle issues. Did get a c. 60cms Eel though. More problems with the model of the Tweed - just couldn't get the flows down the model right and got massive flooding ourselves at the bottom of the "river" - "Berwick" was under about "50m" of water. Had to borrow an antique, hand-held, wood drill from the Sunderland Country Rangers who were demonstrating traditional wood turning and make some extra drainage and eventually got the flow rates right. The children then started pouring in, an endless chain of groups, Fine when a little gap between them, but when one lot arrived when I was only half way through my spiel to another lot, they got the message end before its beginning, which caused some rapid re-thinking. These shows take a lot of effort, but when confronted with group after group of children who when asked what the fish in front of them were either couldn't think of a single name or said "Mackerel" (the commonest answer) you realise just how important such work is. I thought of St. Paulinus*, shook off the inevitable feeling of despair & hopelessness and knuckled down to re-educating Northumberland's youth. As I tested each group at the end on the difference between Trout and Salmon Parr I do know that at least some now can tell them apart & have heard of "Trout".  The Eel was a great hit though - more did know the name, though most then asked if it was electric.  One little girl though had a bad moment when it swam up and had to be taken away. I don't know how many times I did my spiel - the total for the whole show for the day was 1700 children and I feel as if I talked to all of them. Kenny did a great job alongside, on the invertebrates (or "mini-beasts" as they are now apparently called). Fortunately, one of the stands was Doddington Ice Cream, which as well as being delicious, lubricates the throat extremely well. Finished around 14.00 after one of the most hectic four hours of my life and packed up -all the fish back in the river safely. James had an easy time today, going down to the estuary to observe the Environment Agency's annual monitoring of the fish in the estuary. ( * St. Paulinus was an early missionary in this area - the Pallinsburn on the Till is named after him)

Friday 5th June: Monthly joint RTC / TF staff meeting in the morning, followed by the monthly biologists' meeting. See the huge improvement in storage produced by the new shelving set up by Shaun  in the Electric-fishing lockup yesterday. Life will be so much easier from now on. Get organised for next few days - netting and tagging at Paxton House tomorrow afternoon and a lamprey survey on Monday - with a NZ visitor as well.