Monday 19th April: Out with Niall to check the smolt traps, but still no movements. The water temperature of the Yarrow has only briefly touched 10 C as yet, no sustained warming up. St. Mary's Loch has a major, "buffering",  effect on its temperatures, keeping the upper Yarrow warmer in Autumn and early Winter, but colder in Spring. One of the things you see when trapping smolts is damaged fish. Some of the damage marks are obvious bill marks from predatory birds, other signs are more difficult to interpret. This was discussed at the last SFCC meeting, when notes were compared on what biologists were seeing at smolt traps in different rivers, and  there has been a study on the Conon system which related different damage marks to bird predators or to Pike and which produced a list of damage types. We are going to use this list this season to check the sorts of damage we see on smolts here and see how it compares to what we find. The important point about this is that the standard figures for the damage done by predatory birds to smolt runs are based only on the numbers of fish actually consumed by birds and make no  allowance for those that die from damage caused by unsuccessful attacks. Of course, it will be necessary to prove that damaged fish actually die as a result of being attacked, and if we find suitable fish, we'll use some of our expensive smolt tags to check on this. Out with Niall again in the afternoon, and got another listening station in to the middle river.

Tuesday 20th April: Traps in the morning, still nothing moving. In the afternoon, out with Niall and installed a listening station at Makerstoun. A nine pound trout caught on the upper river brought in for examination - had a full-sized Toad in it as well as some digested small mammal remains. One of the fattest fish I've ever seen and of interest to see a Toad inside. Frogs are well known trout food, particularly in Spring in hill lochs, but Toads are a much rarer food item.

Wednesday 21st April: At a RAFTS (Rivers & Fisheries Trusts of Scotland) meeting in Perth to identify areas of common interest for joint work by Trusts. This will be written up by RAFTS and will show what opportunities there are for national, regional and joint programmes.

Thursday 22nd April: Out to do the traps in the morning and got the first few smolts. Also the first Toads - Toads and Smolts go together in traps, responding to the same temperatures. Also saw my first Swallow, so perhaps some warmer weather is on the way. In the afternoon, out with Niall and put in another acoustic listening station at Hendersyde and then fitted the smolt trap at the Gala fish farm.

Friday 23rd April: Staff meeting in the morning, then out to put in more listening stations and Paxton and check on some of the earlier installations. Reports of large numbers of smolts from the lower river, so action starting.