News

‘Fish Live in Trees’, they do, they really do!

by Stuart Brabbs | May 14, 2015 | Conservation, General | 3 Comments

Muir and I attended a 2 day workshop in Argyll organised by Argyll Fisheries Trust, funded by Ibis and delivered (in part) by the Wild Trout Trust to examine the benefits and see the improvements of introducing (or leaving) Large Woody Debris (LWD) in rivers. This...

Loch Doon project

by Stuart Brabbs | May 12, 2015 | General | 0 Comments

We have been working away behind the scenes to put in place everything needed to monitor smelt output from the catchment above the dam. We know numbers are critically low as only a handful of salmon have made it through the dam in the last 3 years. We suspect one of...

Dean Ford

by Stuart Brabbs | May 10, 2015 | Conservation, General | 2 Comments

The upgrade at Dean Ford is virtually complete and should again open to traffic very shortly. This is a huge improvement over the ford and will allow salmon and trout to move up and downstream in virtually any height of water. There can't be much left to do aside...

Giant hogweed control commences on the Ayr

by Stuart Brabbs | May 8, 2015 | fishing, General | 0 Comments

Following up on the previous years control of non native invasive species, ART managed to secure a limited amount of funding to allow us to control Giant hogweed in Ayrshire. With the plants not growing quickly, our contractors have started spraying this plant on the...

Glaisnock Pollution at Cumnock

by Stuart Brabbs | May 6, 2015 | General | 2 Comments

This afternoon I received a call from SEPA informing me that there had been a pollution incident on the Glaisnock Water at Cumnock. An articulated lorry carrying glue had overturned and spilt it's load which had run to the burn. I headed straight there expecting the...

Water vole spotted at Belston

by Stuart Brabbs | Apr 30, 2015 | Conservation, General | 9 Comments

Max Stobbs called today to inform me that he thought he's spotted a water vole at Belston. It appears he's seen it a few time in front of the cabin which made me suspect it may be a rat so I asked him for a photo to confirm it's identity. Both photos below were taken...

Day 3 at Caaf

by Stuart Brabbs | Apr 29, 2015 | Conservation, General | 3 Comments

We scaled our operation down today but still managed to net more wee trout. No rainbow or eels turned up in the nets, just lovely but small brownies. We started by emptying the fyke nets left overnight fully expecting to capture trout and eels but unfortunately it was...

Day 2 at Caaf

by Stuart Brabbs | Apr 28, 2015 | Conservation, General | 3 Comments

After an arduous shift yesterday, we set off bright an early for another day of netting at Caaf Reservoir. We had Max and Jim with us to help with relocating the fish to their new locations. Gary Anderson as ever was willing to get stuck in and that literally means...