It's been an interesting start to the 2011 sampling season and we're already ahead of last year! The weather for the last two weeks has been kind and the rivers low so we've managed to get out electrofishing, as well as continuing with the sweep netting.
Electrofishing-wise we've completed 5 catchments - 3 of which involved quite large walks to and from the sites. Sandwood probably took the prize for that, with the 2 Biologists + 2 intrepid volunteers heading out into the moor for a 6 mile-ish round trip. The company was good and the midges and clegs relatively kind but we were all glad to see the van on our way home! Gleann Leireag and the Polly were similar, without the volunteers, but these were interspersed with the more biologist friendly Laxford and na Thull. Saying that, the clegs were far from friendly on either of these 2 and we ended up with 2 rather lumpy biologists from all the bites! The results from the electrofishing will be worked up at the end of the season and the reports produced, but there was at least one happy chappy from all of the eels seen, while fry populations also looked good.
Our sweep netting for the Aquaculture Project is now finished. We managed to get all of the fish required from the Laxford, Kyle of Durness and Polla, with the results passed on to the project officers who will coordinate for the whole of the west coast and report back. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get sampling on the Kinloch following a misunderstanding on the part of the keeper, but keep our fingers crossed for future occasions should the project continue. There certainly seemed to be a reasonable number of post smolts in the pool we would have sampled and it is a lovely little river. Always nice to go somewhere different as well.... Next week is the Aquaculture Project Steering Group meeting, where we will get a preliminary idea of the results and other news from the project.
We will be continuing with the WSFT monthly sweeps of the Polla and Laxford until October. There have been a few recaptures to date and these are always nice to see. From this we can work out growth rates and compare differences between years and systems often with interesting results. While most of the recaptures were from 2010, there have been 3 from 2009 so far. Not quite beating our record of 5 years since original tagging (taken in 2010) but providing interesting results.
Looking forward to the next few weeks, we hope to continue with the electrofishing programme, building up a picture of the juvenile densities within the area. We also have scale reading to get on with, should the weather change and preparations for the Moy Games where we will be sharing a stall this year with the Ness & Beauly Fisheries Trust. Plenty to be getting on with and nice to get out and about. Hopefully the weather, and the midges, will remain kind and this will be a successful year.
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