Monday 21st September: In the office most of the day, entering data from the electric-fishing surveys. In the evening, dinner with a cousin who's fishing Tillmouth this week and hear of his three fish for the day.

Tuesday 22nd September: More data entry in the morning, then out to do repairs on the Tweedsmuir trap. On the way back, into the salmon viewing centre at Philiphaugh, where I'll be setting up a stall at the weekend for the "Salmon Homecoming" event there, to see how I could lay things out. Should have the spare fish counter working as a demonstration and laptops with loops showing fish going through the counters, which James has produced.

Wednesday 23rd September: More data entry in the morning, then back to the Tweedsmuir trap. James and Kenny out finishing off the upper Tweed electric-fishing work.

Thursday 24th September: Down to Berwick to pick up scale packets and DNA tissue samples from the nets there and hear about their season, which was much disrupted by high water. As always in Berwick, go to the Berwick Shellfish Company to buy crab meat, but none till tomorrow. Told it has been an exceptional season for Lobster on the east coast this year and that it has never been cheaper, so get Lobsters instead of crab - as its also been an exceptional year for Sea-trout on this coast, wonder if there's a connection. Also told of many salmon seen in the estuary yesterday, and of the seals pursuing them. On up river collecting scale packets and DNA samples and getting the news and views from the riverbank. The bottom of the river definitely catching bigger fish than further up. At The Junction see bedrock exposed at the bottom of the Teviot, a sign of low water levels, which seems incredible after all the rain we've had this summer. There really is very little storage capacity for water in this catchment now and the loss goes back to the first quarter of the 19th century when there was massive drainage of lochs and wetlands as detailed in the New Statistical Account - what is now Kelso racecourse, for example, was a loch and wetland with a large colony of Black-headed Gulls, from  which the "poor people" of Kelso collected the eggs for sale. It is also commonly stated in the NSA that people's health had become much better with the drainage and that the "ague" (Rheumatism) which plagued so many had gone with the drier conditions. The Tweed catchment must have been a very wet and watery place in the past, but now a couple of dry weeks and the water levels collapse. Back at the office enter the sample details into the database and spend quite some time transferring the fin clips from their original tubes, which have not proved airtight, into the new batch of tubes, which should hold in the preservative better.

Friday 25th September: Weekly meeting in the morning, then out to finish off the electric-fishing of the Tima Water, the most upstream tributary of the Ettrick. Clearly better fry numbers lower down, but parr numbers reasonable much further upstream. Looks like might have been better access two Autumns ago than last Autumn.  Take a genetics sample, so we can see if anything distinctive about these fish and how they relate to fish elsewhere in the Ettrick.