Monday 2nd August: In the office all day. E-mails, admin and analysis of data. Data analysis is an essential part of my work as our main aim is to try and understand how the salmon and trout populations of the catchment "work" - and why. We're in the fortunate position here of being in a generally good state, so we can see how things are when they are working - what numbers of salmon fry there are and where, for instance or what the exploitation rates are. If things do go wrong therefore, we should be able to see where they have gone wrong and have a good chance of knowing why. If you've never seen a clock working, it's a lot more difficult to repair one that's broken !

Tuesday 3rd August: More data analyses

Wednesday 4th August: Out with Kenny to collect tissue samples for genetics analysis from sites on the Dye and the Eye. These are specifically for the Sea-trout work being done with the Living North Seas programme, but take a salmon sample from the Dye as well, as this could be of use for the FASMOP work on salmon genetics - it's not one of the programmed sample sites for this (the Whiteadder is a "new" population of salmon and unlikely to have any genetic distinctiveness) but since they're in the bucket along with the trout, there's no extra work to sample them as well. Cleaned out the little fish pass at the Watch Water reservoir intake on the Dye - when the Whiteadder system was being recolonised it became clear from our electric-fishing surveys that this intake was blocking the upper Dye, some 5kms, but when we raised the matter with the predecessors of Scottish Water, they were able to produce a letter from the RTC at the time of the reservoir's construction saying that the Dye was not a salmon spawning area and that no access facilities were required. We had to pay for that little fish pass ourselves therefore! It was an interesting example of just how small a structure can block salmon access if its shape is "just wrong" - I remember going and sitting beside it when the fish were running to see how exactly it was that it stopped them. Basically, the water was spread out so thinly over a concrete apron that fish couldn't get a "grip" on it, and if water levels rose, then the chute of water out of the gap was so fast nothing could get through. There's a great salmon population upstream of that intake now though, and today we got a Salmon parr of 160mm, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, I've ever seen. On to the Eye Water, near Grantshouse, and found a mass of 5-7" trout there - easy to see how the 19th century catches recorded from the Eye were produced. Nothing of modern takeable size though.

Thursday 5th August: Out with Shaun to collect genetics samples of trout and salmon from sites on the Leader and the Gala. Again, take both Salmon and Trout where they overlap, though today's samples are specifically for Trout and the LNS work

Friday 6th August: Joint staff meeting in the morning, then out to take a salmon genetics sample from the Quair Water (with a trout one as well, as they'll be in the same bucket).