Monday 24th August: A meeting at Pitlochry all day, as part of the group drafting the Code of Good Practice in Fisheries Management.

Tuesday 25th August: Touch and go as to whether electric-fishing possible. James and Kenny went out first, to see what the burns were like in the Peebles area, then phoned back to say the smaller ones were probably workable, so Sean and I set out to the Manor Water.  Just tried the upper area, where the burns are smaller, and quicker up and down and found manageable sites. Good numbers of salmon in the main channel and trout in the side burns, but some very small salmon indeed, just in the upper 30's and lower 40mm's. It's very noticeable that the really small ones are in at the side when you find them, in the calmer water, while the larger ones are further out in the faster. These small fry, not much larger than they were when they hatched out in April, are obviously on their way out, the losers in the competition for survival. There were some salmon of around 65-70mm, which I had to take scale samples from as I wasn't sure if they were some very large fry from this year or very small parr from last year. It's not often that fry and parr aren't obvious from their size. The upper Manor is very poor by Tweed standards, with water conductivities in the 50s (Pure water does not conduct electricity - and is sterile. The more impurities in it, the higher its conductivity and the chemically richer it is. Conductivity therefore indicates general "fertility" - the Teviot's burns, by comparison, have conductivities of around 200- 400) and it may be that the fish here are just very slow growing in a chemically poor environment.

Wednesday 26th August: Out electric-fishing with Kenny, despite the weather forcast. Sampling has been so disrupted that we have to take any chance. However, found the burns in the upper Tweed were not up, though the main channel sites still too high to work in. Started with a couple of burns at Stobo, one of which was salmon fry dominated as we were only a few hundred metres from the river - good numbers. At the other burn we were a mile or so from the river, and quite a height above it, but still found a few salmon fry in amongst the dominant trout. This was a surprise - the odd Salmon parr would not have been unusual in such a place, but fry in such a small burn such a distance from the river is not usual. I can't believe any salmon would actually have spawned in such a little burn, only just over 1m wide, but I suppose there are a lot of small salmon around now and these might do such a thing. The fry were a good size though, quite different from the little stunted things on the Manor yesterday. The conductivities were much higher though, showing these burns are chemically much richer. On to the top of the Tarth Water (the main tributary of the Lyne) to do burns around Dolphinton. This area, despite being "Upper Tweed" is actually very flat and fertile and generally lowland in characteristics. The burns are deep, with gravel and weed rather than being fast flowing and rocky. Some real jungle sites, where we had to bash through the bankside vegetation, people's gardens, plantations etc. Good trout numbers but we found our first "bad" burn - looked beautiful, like a picture of an English chalk stream, with a gravel bottom and banks of weed in deep, moving, water - but very few fish and only one of them a fry, the other half dozen being fat trout parr and an even fatter salmon parr. The first suspect in such situations is access and this burn will be walked later to see if there is some obstacle or other. The other possibility here is lack of suitable spawning gravel - what was on the bottom was very small. What makes good nursery area is a good mix of habitat types:- gravel for spawning, shallow areas for fry and deeper for parr. One view is that the ideal ratio is 1:2:3 (one unit of spawning gravel, to two of fry habitat to three of parr habitat). If any one type is lacking or rare, then the other population levels in the other types can be depressed. In this burn, all the habitat we could see was Parr type, no spawning or fry types. A very strange thing at a site in the Tarth Water itself. After finishing the sample, checked some silt for lamprey larvae - there was an eruption in the mud as something big came out from under the surface - a 6" trout ! I have never seen anything like this before in all my years of electric-fishing, a trout that had actually buried itself in silt (Kenny saw it too, so I have a witness). There were lots of lamprey larvae in this silt - can trout actually burrow after them? But I've never heard of lamprey larvae being found in trout stomachs either.

In the evening, to Kelso for the Boatmen's meeting where a wide range of topics affecting the river and the fisheries were brought up to hear the views from the riverbank. The proposed changes to the Spring Salmon conservation rules gave a lively debate and the resulting opinions will be carried to the RTC September meeting.

Thursday 27th August: Out with Sean to the Manor. Had hoped the main channel would be down a bit, but there had been rain again, but found it just about manageable to sample. A local gamekeeper as a spectator at the first site gave the traditional "I would never have thought there were so many fish" comment on seeing electric-fishing for the first time. Small fry again though, and some really miserable specimens. At one site I actually measured one as 34mm which would be little more than the size that it came out of the gravel at in April. There's a sort of "silent holocaust" goes on in Salmon spawning areas every summer as numbers are brought down to whatever the local environment can actually sustain and these sad little fish that we see are the remnants of the losers in the battle for survival. The contrast with the winners (so far) is extreme - these are nice little fish that look fit and well, though on the Manor they are still only in the 50-60mm range. Took a genetics sample, so should find out if these Manor salmon are  a distinctive population and what they are as adults - Spring Salmon, Autumn Grilse etc. Went to the top of one of the Manor's burns, on the Peebles side, and hit "silly numbers" of trout fry - 74 in the three minute sample.  It takes longer to process the fish at such places than it does to actually catch them. This was a richer burn (double the conductivity of the Manor) and all the fry were good quality, though still generally small.

Friday 28th August: Weekly meeting in the morning, then admin. In the afternoon, down the river to pick up scale packets and chase up various goods and services that aren't being delivered on time.