05/01/2011
The big freeze has ended, for now, and temperatures are back to normal. Thanks to Bob’s constant work no eggs or fish have been lost and we managed to keep the water flowing. December was officially the coldest month since records began, and as the fertilized eggs are kept at ambient temperatures they will probably hatch later this year, as will the eggs in the river.
The catch records for 2010 have been collated and show that the Carron has had its best year for rod caught salmon since official records began in 1952 and undoubtedly its best ever. The total of 419 salmon and grilse eclipses the previous record of 262 in 2007 and with the 5-year average now standing at 261 compared with 6 in 2001 the river has shown a remarkable turnaround since the restoration programme began in earnest in 2001. A significant number of the rod-caught salmon were adipose fin-clipped indicating that they had been CWT tagged either as autumn fry or spring smolts. These fish were raised in the hatchery before release into the river, and have been to sea and now returned to the Carron to spawn. This is very encouraging for the restoration project, as is the large number of unmarked fish caught. These fish are a combination of stocked fish that were not tagged and naturally produced fish.
13/01/2011
More egg stripping and fertilizing today, collecting about 70,000 eggs from 39 ripe salmon hens. These eggs are now in the silos at the hatchery, bringing the numbers of eggs for salmon and trout this year up towards one million.
A small number of hens are not yet ready for stripping; some of these may be immature and spawn next year while others may naturally later spawners and will produce eggs in the next few weeks. This reflects the situation in the wild, where fish will spawn at different times in different rivers, even within a relatively small area such as Wester Ross. Once again this aspect of the salmonid life cycle helps protect the populations. Late spawning fish may protect the eggs from early spates while the early spawning fish may allow their fry to get first use of the resources available when they reach first-feeding stage.
Temperatures have approached 10 degrees this week: 25 degrees warmer than a couple of weeks ago. The waters have warmed and the fish are feeding again. The wet weather at this time of year always brings a risk of floods washing out the redds where the wild fish have spawned in the river. Although the Carron is certainly a lot higher than it was during the freeze, the rain and thaw have been gradual and we haven’t seen a serious spate yet this year.