A taste of Sutherland

The Trust auction is going well, although there are still a few bargains available so if you haven't already registered, click here and pick up that unexpected or unique offer. With hind stalking in 3 different areas, and a range of different budget fishing packages on offer, this is your chance to explore this exceptionally beautiful area and help the Trust at the same time. Don't shoot or fish? - never fear, you can buy the venison or smoked salmon instead - and some whisky or wine to go with it. Click on the link to get your very own taste of Sutherland  http://www.melandphil.com/geo/index.php

The trout season has come to an end and we're looking for progress reports on the 'Alphabet of Scottish Loch' Challenge. How did you get on? We're looking at this a bit like 'Munro bagging' for the fishing world, so you don't have to complete it in one year but we'd love to hear what you managed in 2014.

Before....

The field season is definitely behind us now, and with high flows experienced likely to remain that way - far to high even to look for spawning trout! These before and after pictures give some idea of the amount of water going down the rivers.... Still hopeful that we'll get something of the salmon if not the tail end trout.

...and after

October saw the first signs of mink recorded by our volunteers on their rafts and tunnels. Definitely

Mink prints on the [ad

not a call for celebration but they were fantastic and quickly had a trap out to see if they could catch him or her. Unfortunately no joy there, so we have to hope that it was a roaming animal that has now moved on, preferably southwards. Thanks to all our volunteers for their work monitoring the rafts and their never ending support of the work in the face of bad weather and few signs.

We are now into the paperwork season and the report writing is under way. The Achriesgill Management Plan is now complete and, with some very simple recommendations (and a few more complex ones), it will hopefully be picked up and go a long way to helping the fish in this lovely wee river.

The next couple of weeks are going to be taken up with meetings - yep, it's that time of year again - and hopefully getting some of the work for next year confirmed. More on that as things get finalised, We'll also be