Stock Improvement

After years of using the original set up installed at our Brood tank holding facility on the west side of the loch it was decided to carry out some much needed maintenance work on the existing brood tanks for this Autumns catching up.

The time and effort taken to gain access to the brood tanks to allow brood fish to be added or to check on the well being of the fish present or to ascertain when they were ready for stripping involved a lot of work removing metal grids tarpaulin covers, fine mesh netting and even chicken wire.

First we had to gain access to the brood tanks after this summers growth of brambles and tall weeds This whole area all had to be strimmed, this is a job that has to be done annually.

Materials were purchased and taken to the site and work commenced on the making of lids to fit both brood tanks. As can be seen below this job was successfully completed with one tank lid painted when these photographs were taken. The other tank lid has since also been painted.

The addition of these lids will make the job of the association members who assist with the hatchery work to be done more easily and efficiently.

Last years continual floods at the time of searching for brood stock gave the Stock Improvement Working Group a hard time. Safety of the group members must be paramount with the rivers and burns receiving regular and sustained downpours. The chances of getting a team together on a Sunday when the rivers were settled for only short periods, were few and far between over the six week catching up period from November to middle of December.

Having said that, the SIWG ended up with 28,000 salmon eggs and 43,000 seatrout eggs in the hatchery at the end of 2006. In view of the prevailing conditions this was a good effort. Well done to the association members who donned their waders to help out and a sincere thank you for your help in assisting to regenerate our migratory fish stocks.

The winter and spring proved to be mostly mild and the sea trout started to hatch in February with the first trough starting to feed by the second week of March. The salmon, who always spawn later than sea trout, started to feed by the second week in April. From May onwards into June we released the largest average-size of sea trout fry we have ever grown on. The salmon fry were also good and healthy when released into our rivers.

The hatchery team done an excellent husbandry job tending the eggs and fry daily, from cleaning screens, removing unused feed and eggshells, checking and regulating water flows and maintenance work on pipes and pumps throughout the hatchery year from the middle of October to the middle of June.

As usual the vast majority of fry were put into the rivers and burns upstream of falls that are impassible to migratory fish. This makes good use of often excellent habitat and feeding, of which we have a limited supply within our system. It also allows our hatchery reared fry to grow on to parr and eventually smolt without competing for food and territorial space. This avoids conflict with fry from naturally spawning migratory fish below inaccessible falls. All our fry were successfully released into our systems burns and rivers by the third week of June.

The L.L.A.I.A. has recognised that salmon and seatrout stocks in the Lomond system, as in the rest of Scotland, are not as prolific as they have been in the past, and to this end the Stock Improvement Working Group (S.I.W.G.) was set up.
This group of association anglers pull on the chest waders every autumn and having sought permission from riparian owners, visit rivers and burns within the Lomond system looking to catch Brood Fish for the hatchery. The method the group uses is Electro Fishing with one man on the probe and a team of men with landing nets directly below him waiting to net any fish caught in the electric field.
Well that’s the theory, in practise we have a saying that you are not a real member of the S.I.W.G. until you take a tumble into the icy November/ December water. We have had some spectacular falls into the rivers from members who only seconds before believed they were standing on good old terra firma river banks (could be a new Olympic sport!).

Despite these little setbacks, members thoroughly enjoy the day out and know they are doing their bit to ensure that the stock enhancement programme continues.