ART Blog

We are now officially closed for the Festive Season and will re open on Wednesday 4th January 2012.

Brian Shaw has left the building for the last time and will be sorely missed; (he is allowed to come back and visit us!). Thanks for everything, Brian and good luck in Speyside. We have virtually completed the office move with just a bit of tidying up and re organising to finish. Over the holiday period our phone and broadband line should be moved but it is doubtful that we will have full service when we return so please be patient as we will only be able to check emails from home and will only have one telephone line in operation (01292 525142) for a few days at least. I hope our answering service will remain operational throughout and I will check this periodically.

I will continue to update the blog if I find anything of interest to report.

Finally, we will be listing more ‘Tackle in the Attic’ items on ebay early in the New Year that were kindly donated by members. TIA has been a great boost to the Trust since it was launched so if you are clearing out unwanted fishing tackle (after Santa Clause brought you nice shiny new things), please think about donating them to the Trust. I’ll let everyone know when the items go live through this blog.

All that’s left for me to do now is wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

The Annual Christmas Raffle Draw was made on the 9th December by Mr John Scott MSP. Many thanks to all who participated in the raffle, and especially to all who very kindly donated a prize. We will do our best to deliver the prizes before we break up for Christmas but failing that, they may be expected early in the New Year.

Janette Galbraith

ART are moving to new offices within Scottish Agricultural College at Auchincruive today (20th December 2011). We can now be found within the Engineering/Training Department which is joined on to our existing building. There will be some disruption to email and telephone service but hopefully nothing too serious and by the time we return after the Christmas holidays, things should be back to normal.

Update.

We still have phones and email. Talk Talk engineers failed to turn up today to move our telephone lines so until this is done we will be between offices. Most of our files and reference materials have been moved which just leaves us with the small problem of where to store our traps, rafts and coolers for salmon in the classroom. Thanks to Aleta for helping out today but above everything else, for bringing in the scones, butter and jam (Brian you are a lucky man!). By tomorrow evening I hope that the move will be about complete. Feel free to drop in and help us if you have time on your hands.

Wednesday Evening Update.

We are still waiting for an engineer to move our phone lines. The latest from Talk Talk is that BT engineers will perform the work but they won’t be arriving until the 28th at the earliest (when we are all on holiday!) We will try to speed this up or else face significant disruption well into January. Other than the phones issues, things have progressed well and we have almost completed the move. We just need to find some storage for mink and vole traps etc, move the computers and we are about done.

At this time of the year when water levels drop and the temperatures plunge, we usually head to the upper catchments to watch and assess the spawning activity of salmon on the redds. This year we are particularly interested in observing activity on the Ponesk Burn which we have featured on these pages several times this year. The burn has been diverted to allow Scottish Coal to extract reserves from below the old channel.  A new river valley was created and once the burn was diverted, the artificial channel improved rapidly.

Brian and I headed to the Ponesk today to search for signs of salmon spawning either in the new channel or upstream in previously inaccessible habitat. Brian headed to the new channel while I headed further upstream with my daughter. (I’m sure Brian will add some photos (taken with his new camera)  and comments below later).

Rather than risk getting stuck, we left the van at the road end and walked a mile or so into the Ponesk.

The Ponesk in this area was inaccessible to migrating salmon until the burn was diverted. This is a high quality habitat that is free of pollution and has endless supply of suitable gravel for spawning.

Unspoilt habitat with great potential for salmon spawning

Despite our best efforts we failed to see any signs of spawing activity. Surprisingly we never saw a salmon anywhere along the mile or so of burn that was walked and I’m certain we didn’t miss them. They just weren’t there. We didn’t quite reach the top of the new channel but with the temperature plunging as the sun dipped behind the bank tops we decided to head back rather than continue to the coal site.

We headed back to the van and nipped along the road to the Stottencleugh Burn at Glenbuck. During the survey season, Struan and I had found a tributary site off the Stottencleugh where trout numbers were over 430 per 100 sq mtrs (superb by anyone’s standards). I wanted to check for signs of trout spawning and hoped there may still be a few good trout still lurking in the burn. No trout but the gravels had all been recently disturbed. In fact, it was difficult to pick out individual redds. Presumably quite a few fish migrate from Glenbuck Loch to spawn in this area.

The Stottencleugh itself appeared in poor condition by comparison to all the surrounding tributaries. The stream bed was coated in iron deposits and the water was opaque. I didn’t have a meter with me to check conductivity or oxygen levels but from past experience we know that groundwater overflowing from historic deep mines and pumped from opencast mining affects conductivity and may be having an impact on this burn. Some previous levels are amongst the highest recorded anywhere in Ayrshire. Conductivity is influenced by dissolved salts and minerals in the water. How high conductivity may impact on egg survival will be a focus of ART’s research over the next few months.

The Stottencleugh in the Upper River Ayr catchment. What impact the water quality of this burn has on salmonid egg survival downstream is unclear.

Crystal clear water and good trout spawning gravel just 30 mtrs upstream of the Stottencleugh. The difference couldn't be more apparent.

We also had a quick look at the Upper Greenock but again failed to see any fish. Maybe we are too early this year. I’ll keep an eye on things over the next week or so and update through the blog if necessary.

The Greenock Water

Brian will no doubt add some photos and comments from the modified section of the Ponesk when he has time.

Trustees (including some of their wives) and staff met at the Carleton Hotel in Prestwick on wednesday evening in order to express our thanks and appreciation to Brian Shaw (our Senior Biologist) who is leaving ART at the end of December to take up a post with the River Spey as Biologist. Following a lovely meal, Brian was presented with a state of the art camera and his wife Aleta received a new watch as a token of our thanks.

Brian and Aleta with their gifts.

Trustees and staff at the Carleton Hotel

Peter Kennedy (Chairman) thanked Brian for all his hard work over his seven years with the Trust which has grown and expanded into new fields under Brian’s leadership. Aleta has been very supportive of Brian and the Trust too, and this hasn’t gone un noticed. Brian thanked the Trustees for ‘taking a chance’ on him when they decided to hire him. He has enjoyed his time in Ayrshire and will fondly remember not just his work and the friends he has made but our rivers and salmon too where he passed many an hour researching the best lies. He has lately developed a particular affinity for the Stinchar but had some great successes on our other rivers too with the Girvan producing his most memorable catch; a 28lb fish in 2009 ( duly returned).

Having worked alongside Brian for the last few years, on behalf of the staff, I’d like to say thanks too. We will all miss him, his boundless enthusiasm and his knowledge too. It has been a pleasure and an education and we all wish him the very best of luck in Speyside.