We visited the upper Stinchar in search of salmon spawning a couple of days ago and filmed this beautiful wee river on a bright winter’s day. We had also been rescuing fish from a burn on the Duisk ahead of emergency repairs taking place so while we did have some sunshine to help with filming, we didn’t have long enough.
Aldinna on the upper Stinchar
This film is about 12minutes long and not only illustrates the occasional spawning redd, it highlights some of the pressures we saw on the river. These pressures come from historic and current land management and while the Stinchar is in good condition, we hope it shows both good and poor practices well and demonstrates the potential impacts and benefits of these practices in a way that is not designed to be critical of any single landowner. We hope this video is helpful to anyone involved with river or land management near rivers. The Trust staff are in the process if visiting landowners within the catchment to see what help we can offer and where we can, assistance to solve problems particularly with bank erosion, and diffuse pollution issues.
The view towards Balloch
The upper Stinchar valley is a beautiful part of Ayrshire and this lovely wee river has some of the best spawning habitat available anywhere in Ayrshire and perhaps even nationwide. Pull up a chair and enjoy the views.
The upper limit of salmonid migration on the Stinchar.; the Stinchar Falls
