SNH staff induction and a modification to the electrofishing equipment
On Tuesday we were asked to deliver a short session for some new SNH staff who are participating in a staff induction week looking at various issues…
Corrie Burn Wier formal assessment
Last week we visited the Corrie Burn Weir again to complete a formal assessment of its "porosity" to migratory fish, or in other words can the fish…
Caught in the act: two scale readings for the price of one.
On Friday and then again today I heard of anglers hooking parr which were then taken by big trout on the Spey. The one reported from Kinermony on…
First day out electrofishing
We surveyed a small burn in the Avon catchment today where a micro hydro scheme is under consideration. Three survey sites were required, all fully…
Diseased fish
Over the last few weeks a few diseased fish have been reported, all carrying the distinctive white fungal blotches. Once badly infected fish often…
River Livet invertebrate sample
Our two summer students started on Monday so I got them straight into the nitty-gritty of invertebrate sampling. This weeks sample came from the…
Sawbill duck counts
Each year the Spey Fishery Board and Foundation staff complete three bird counts on the river. Counts are scheduled for Mar/May/December although in…
Big grannom hatch on the Spey at the moment
Up in the Tulchan area this afternoon there were huge numbers of Grannom (sedge/caddis fly) hatching. Travelling along the road which was a few…
Subscribe for Spey Briefings
If you would like to receive future Spey Briefings via email please sign up with your email address by completing the submission form which can be…
Aberlour rivercam
Farson Digital have relocated the rivercam from Blacksboat Bridge to Wester Elchies with a lovely view of the footbridge in Aberlour. The rivercam…
Water abstraction in Truim catchment
After checking the smolt traps I had a close look at some of the water abstraction issues in the upper Truim catchment. At present the Truim has a…
Final smolt traps update
After difficult smolt trapping conditions we called a halt today. The run has over in the Truim for a while now whilst in the Tromie we had about 12…
Gordon Castle Highland Games
Yesterday saw the 3rd annual "Modern Gordon Castle Highland Games". I understand from the ringside commentary yesterday that the Games used to be a…
Wild Trout Trust stocking video
The Wild Trout Trust have really embraced the use of video having produced a number of excellent clips. They have just published a stocking guide…
Hatchery fish emerge – properly this time!
On the 7th March I posted a thread called "Hatchery fish emerge". Of course that was completely the wrong terminology as emergence in a fish hatching…
Smolt trap week ending 6th May 2013
Spring arrived all of a sudden on Speyside at the weekend, unfortunately it was accompanied by heavy rain and both the Truim and Tromie traps were…
London public meeting presentations
For the benefit of those able and unable to attend the recent Spey Public meeting held in the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, Parliament…
Smolt trap update: week ending 29th April and other news
Another trip south to check the smolts traps this morning. It was yet another chilly day, has there been a warm day this year? But the burns had…
Name the Spey tributary?
How well do you know the Spey catchment? I still have lots of places to visit some of which are quite spectacular, including this tributary. Can you…
Smolt trap: week ending 23rd April
Up to the smolts traps yesterday for my weekly stint. Conditions had improved and both traps were operating. We checked the Truim first as always.…
“Pearls in Peril” Riverwatcher
RAFTS have a vacancy for a Riverwatcher person for the freshwater pearl mussel conservation project "Pearls in Peril". This position will be based in…
A wee tour upriver
On the way to the smolts traps I managed to take a few photos of the river conditions. Someone asked yesterday where the turbidity in the lower…
Smolt trap update
The last few days have been challenging for the smolt trapping. Last Saturday produced the first decent catch of smolts, 28 in total, then on Sunday…
Glenbeg Burn culvert and habitat improvements
In 2012 Jock Royan organised an auction on The Salmon Fishing Forum http://salmo.proboards.com/index.cgi . The funds raised in the auction were…
Orange striped stoneflies wanted
The Riverfly Partnership are looking for specimens of the Orange striped stonefly. This large stonefly now has a new scientific name Perlodes…
Smolt traps update
I could summarise the situation very quickly with a few words - not much happening. Water levels and temperatures are still very low so it is little…
Salmon parasites but mainly salmon gill maggots
Like almost all species, plant or animal, salmon have at times to bear a large parasite burden. Intestinal worms and flukes, skin and fin…
Upper Spey invertebrates
Whilst checking the smolt trap on Monday we collected a standard three minute invertebrate kick sample from the upper Spey at Kingussie. The site…
Ranunculus no more
The Spey Foundation is delighted to announce today that biological control of the highly invasive plant Ranunculus fluitans, which was introduced…
Glenbeg culvert baffles
The works to install the fish passage baffles in the Glenbeg Burn started today. On the way back from the smolt trap I called in the see how things…
Smolt trap update
This time last year we were catching a lot of smolts in the Truim and Tromie traps. 2013 is a bit different with very low numbers of fish caught so…
Castle Grant invertebrates……….staring into the caddis abyss
Continuing my upstream look at the invertebrate population in the Spey a sample was collected from outside the hut at Castle Grant beat 3 last…
Laggan invertebrates
Last week I collected a sample of invertebrates from the Laggan beat of the Spey below Carron Bridge. The habitat here was mixed with cobbles and…
Smolt traps ice up
The smolt traps were installed in the Truim and Tromie last week, approximately the same date as in previous years. This time last year we were…
Dulnain habitat improvements
After some surveying on the mainstem with Duncan Ferguson I was taken on a conducted tour of habitat works underway on the Dulnain and Achnahannet…
Hatchery fish emerge
A quick trip to the hatchery this morning as Jimmy Woods the hatchery manager said there was a good hatch underway. The water temp was a steady 4…
Spey Briefing 2013
The first Spey Briefing of 2013 is now available for downloaded HERE. The Briefing includes details of the Spey opening day catches and prize winers,…
Invertebrate sampling…the results
After two and a bit days I finally managed to sort, identify and count the invertebrates samples from the bright and dark riverbed sites in the lower…
A tin can on a tin roof on a tinned pie factory…..
Many will I'm sure be familiar with the Marine Scotland tagging project on the coast at Montrose, for those who are not see here . The project…
Were there more parr back then……
"If the burn was capable of holding that many fish then, what has changed that means that it can't physically hold that many fish now? Yet another…
Invertebrate sampling
Some basic biology today with two invertbrate samples collected from the mainstem at the Brae Water. For interest I took one sample from an area of…
Think you can tell an escaped farm salmon from a wild one……?
A student at Stirling University is carrying out some research to test anglers/biologists abilities to differentiate between wild salmon…
New Facebook and Twitter pages for the Spey Fishery Board
It has taken a while but with the linking of the Spey weekly fishing reports and Spey Blog to Facebook, and apparently Twitter, we are moving into…
Chabet Burn
Spey River superintendent report - 10th November 1941 “On Saturday 11th October there was a spate in the Chabet Burn which runs into the…
Salmon cycles
Salmon run characteristics are never stable and major changes in run timing and age of return from the sea have been demonstrated for many rivers…
Habitat improvements
Here are a couple of photos showing fencing on both banks of a River Dulnain tributary. These habitat improvement works were identified and…
Spey mouth
I thought this was a lovely picture of the lower few miles of the Spey. No other large river in Scotland has such a natural course where it…
Spey invasives
Last summer Toby and Callum, our summer students, got to know the lower river whilst completing a survey of invasive species. The survey targetted…
Spey opening day competitions
Some tweeks have been made to the arrangements for the opening day prizes for the first and largest fish caught. The changes are that the…
Spey Conservation Policy 2013
The new season will be open a week today so this is a good time to remind everyone about the Conservation Policy for 2013. The wording concerning…
Speyside winter scene
The snow has been here for a week now in the Knockando area with about 8" lying this morning, further east it appears to be a lot worse. Quite…
Smolt trap reports 2012
The Truim and Tromie Smolt trap reports for 2012 can be viewed by clicking the following links Truim and Tromie. We have operated Rotary Screw…
2012: a wet year or not??
First of all may I wish everyone a Happy and successful 2013. I have just enjoyed a nice break although I was glad to get back to work and away from…
Delfur tour
I had a wee spawning tour of the Delfur beat this afternoon in the company of the beat ghillies. Despite the apparent stability of the Delfur pools…
All quiet in the mddle river
I took a quick stroll along the river at Knockando this afternoon. The river was up a wee bit, 1'4" on the beat gauge and with the slightly peaty…
Tulchan Burn redd count
The conditions weren't too promising but we are running out of time for redd counting so together with three Tulchan ghillies a redd count was…
A Spey urban burn
The redd count on the Rothes Burn provided some interesting info. The Rothes Burn has many of the typical problems of urban burns: japanese knotweed…
More main river spawning
I had a walk at lunchtime along the river today close to my house. Considering the concern about numbers of fish this year it was good to see…
Where have the parr gone?
The other day I had a walk up one of the burns identified in the electrofishing report as suffering from an apparent decline in the salmon parr…
Spey Electrofishing Report 2012
A key role of the Spey Foundation is to monitor the health of salmon and trout stocks throughout the Spey catchment. A rotational monitoring system…
Spey mainstem spawning
The first reports of salmon spawning lower half of the Spey mainstem were received last week from Castle Grant. Following that report I had a quick…
Allt Lorgy restoration project
The Spey Catchment Initiative recently completed the initial restoration works on a project to restore natural river functions on the Allt Lorgy, a…
Dullan Water sea trout
Following a site visit with the SEPA restoration project manager at the Corrie Burn weir we went for a look at the weirs and fish passes on the…
Climate change mitigation
The Spey got down to some serious climate change proofing measures today...... double glazing at long last arrived at Nether Borlum. Hopefully no…
Mashie Burn and upper Spey
The weather was distinctly unpromising this morning but we headed up river to count redds in the upper Spey and Mashie Burn. The light rain didn't…
Truim fish counter
There aren't many fish counters on the Spey but Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) have a good fish counter on the abstraction weir on the Truim…
Upper Avon salmon spawning
Next year we will be electrofishing the Avon so I was interested in the number of redds in the upper reaches. We set off early this morning to…
Avon Broodstock catchup
Spey hatchery manager Jimmy Woods and the bailiffs, ably assisted by a squad of volunteers were out catching up broodstock on the Avon today. Single…
A sea trout burn ………………………………
I had never walked this burn but the mention of sea trout spawning yesterday made me pull over as I crossed the bridge. It was a nice still autumn…
Sea trout get down to it!
Duncan Ferguson set me this picture of a pair of sea trout spotted spawning in a burn above Carrbridge this morning. This is the first report of…
A new fish counter on the Spey
There are not many fish counters on the Spey so it was interesting to hear that Rio Tinto were going to make the substantial investment in a new…
Big country – the upper Dulnain
After a couple weeks of trying access permission and low water combined on the same day to allow us to complete an electrofishing survey in the…
Grade creep………or it is easier to get an “A” pass nowadays?
As discussed in recent posts I like to use the SFCC electrofishing classification to put our Spey survey results into some sort of Scottish context.…
Allt an Fhithich
The Allt an Fhithich, or as it is otherwise known the Milton Burn (one of many such named burns in the Spey catchment), is a small burn which…
Aberlour Meeting
Many thanks to those who attended the meeting in Aberlour last night. The feedback received from the meeting has been generally positive although…
Burn of Lochy
It has been very busy recently and I have been juggling electrofishing, stocking, preparation for the Aberlour meeting and a bit of…
0+ monitoring Burn of Brown
The Burn of Brown has been stocked for a number of years principally because there is what is considered to be a partially inaccessible waterfall…
Trout olympics stunt backfires!
Sandy Smith, ghillie at Phones flagged me down yesterday before handing over a little parcel. Inside was a recently dead 8 inch trout which Sandy has…
0+ parr stocking monitoring
It is a pity that the Google analytics tool is not working at the moment as it would be interesting to see how many hits the website had this…
Website comments
The Spey Fishery Board is very keen to stimulate interest and understanding of the work we do, and to promote dialogue via the website, this being…
Corrie & Tommore Burns stocking monitoring
As reported a while back we stocked the Corrie and Tommore Burns at the end of June with fed fry. Today we went back to monitor their progress. We…
Middle Dulnain parr surveys
Much concern has been expressed about the juvenile salmon densities in the middle reaches of the Dulnain, one of the Spey's most significant…
Value of riparian trees
Click here for an interesting document on the value of riparian trees for providing shade and cover. If predictions are to be believed then water…
Dirty water clearing & some fishy findings
Duncan Ferguson sent me a photo from the upper Spey just below Spey Dam yesterday and it looks as if the river is clearing at last. Significant rain…
Craigellachie small, and not so small, fry
I provided some information about the Spey mainstem salmon fry monitoring in the last post along with details of the three sites completed at…
Spey Mainstem Electrofishing
Trying to quantify the juvenile fish population in a river as large as the Spey is difficult if not impossible. However one technique that can be…
Steve gets his Loch Spey badge at last
Steve Burns has worked for the Spey Fishery Board/Foundation for 23 years but today was the first time he had made it up the source of the Spey at…
A spotty fellow
Mark Melville, Delfur Head Ghillie, sent me this picture of a very spotty sea trout. Mark reckons it was the spottiest trout he has ever seen - its…
Escapees on the loose
Over the last couple weeks there have been reports from the middle and upper river regarding well mended escapee farmed salmon. I had a chance to…
Middle Dulnain
Home alone today so I took advantage of the weather to go and have a look at the middle reaches of the Dulnain. The River Dulnain is one of the main…
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