The River Carron Restoration Project
The River Carron Restoration Project was formally established in August 2009 but is founded on the long standing work of freshwater fisheries expert, Bob Kindness of Inverness College UHI. Since 1995, Bob has been working on a salmon and sea trout reintroduction programme with the primary aim of increasing wild North Atlantic Salmon and Sea Trout (known as
Salmonid) populations in the River Carron, reinstating the river as a viable fishery. Research has also been investigating the reasons for the decline in numbers, whether restocking alone could bring fish back to the river and if this could provide a model for other similarly affected rivers.
The River Carron is located in Wester Ross on the West coast of Scotland. Like many West Highland rivers, stock and catch levels for salmon and sea trout fisheries crashed in the 1990s to critically low levels in 2001. Captive broodstocks from the few remaining wild fish were established using specially constructed tanks and ponds. To date more than five million spawn and juvenile salmon and sea trout has been released into the river. As part of the project, to track progress over 100,000 autumn salmon fry and over 25,000 spring smolts have been tagged and fin-clipped since 2005. A screw trap has been monitoring the flow of smolts descending to the sea and checking how many of these were tagged. A 100% catch and release policy is in place to maximise the number of naturally spawning fish in the river. Fishery records show that rod catches of Salmon and Sea Trout have both significantly increased since 2001 when only 6 fish were caught all season.
There are many benefits of the restocking programme. Overall catches have improved dramatically and the number of fish spawning naturally has increased greatly. The lower three beats have been made available to visitors on a cheap day ticket basis making the river an asset to the local community. The biodiversity of the catchment is benefiting both in and out of the water. The river has quite simply come back to life!