Stock Improvement

Overview by Michael Brady Chairman and Angus MacRitchie Fishery Manager:  Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association

We have done it! We have carried out our own smolt programme. Perhaps some members thought it could never be accomplished. We hope all of our members will be happy and pleased by what their association has achieved.

This report might be rather long winded to some of you, but a lot of our members are interested in the subject and for that reason we have made the effort to produce this comprehensive report.

We would be lying if we said it was easy running this venture, in fact a great many hurdles had to be overcome and there was no shortage of risks involved real or otherwise. On Sunday 16th May we finally completed our work and reached the stage when we released the last of your  smolts into the Loch Lomond System by putting these smolts into the River Leven after first imprinting them in the smolt tank on the R. Fruin. We marvelled at the quality of the Fruin smolts that were the last to be stocked. The Fruin smolts were S1’s, they are seen in the photo below in excellent condition, we just wish we had a lot more of them!

The River Fruin smolts: Beautiful and healthy fish imprinted on the River Fruin and released into the River Leven Sunday May 16th 2010.

It has taken us two years to get to this stage, earlier in this programme we also released thousands of fingerlings from Upper R. Endrick stock into the system above the Loup of Fintry on the River Endrick.

 Choices have to be made between doing nothing or trying hard to do something. So for that reason alone it has been well worth the effort, the risks and the costs.

It goes without saying that to achieve a sustainable run of fish would be pretty good going these days, such is the decline being observed in many fisheries up and down the country. Our aim however is to achieve a sustainable run of salmon and sea trout in the system and try to improve the numbers of fish both running the system overall and eventually spawning on the redds.

The work done over this past two years is your current committees strategy along with planned other work that will compliment these efforts. The five year programme will hopefully be evaluated for its success over what are likely to be both good and bad years at sea.

We will be rolling out a programme of work over the next year or so that will achieve some of our aims and our members and ticket holders will hear of that work in due course.

These are the S2s from the River Douglas: Note the extra thickness of these smolts compared to the Fruin S1s.

We want everyone to know that we have always worked towards maintaining our fish stocks over this past decade. All our previous efforts using fry from our hatchery have been involved in trying to maintain our fish stocks against the many increasing pressures on them, and in addition kick starting areas that have been ravaged by sheep dip etc. Fish wipe outs along with fly life devastation affected many of our streams years ago. Because of this efforts had to be diverted to try and prevent total wipe out in these areas rather than concentrating on improvements elsewhere.

Sea trout stocks have seen devastation in a number of Scotland’s west coast fisheries, yet we still have sufficient numbers of sea trout that could recover if help was given. In other words our efforts have helped to prevent wipe out and maintained a stock of fish. In the case of sea trout we are not saying we have plenty of sea trout, we know that is not the case. What we are saying is that we are not like many other systems where the numbers are so low that it is debatable if their recovery will happen at any time in the foreseeable future. In some rivers outwith our system there are virtually no sea trout at all. In this system we have the potential to recover but we have to apply our efforts thoughtfully and in the appropriate manner.

We will be applying more resources when it comes to improving the salmon and sea trout stocks within the Loch Lomond system over the immediate future. There are sufficient resources (money) to do so, otherwise very little could be achieved, a point often forgotten in the greater scheme of things.

Smolt/ Fingerling Programme: In reality there are two programmes we are running, a fingerling stocking programme and a smolt release programme. We run a smolt programme that also incorporates the production of fingerling parr as well. We could also just run a fingerling stocking only programme.

Running the smolt programme cost a lot more money particularly in the setting up of the smolt tanks etc.  Obtaining the large four metre holding tanks for free gave us the opportunity to start with the smolt programme.

Now that we have the smolt set-up in place on three of our rivers we can choose between a continuation of the smolt programme or just running a larger fingerling stocking. It may well be that that running the fingerling stocking may be just as good as smolts but will cost less and greatly reduce the risks associated with keeping fish in a holding tank for longer periods to imprint prior to release. The Committee will look at all our options and come to a decision in due course. So far this work has not cost our members and permit holders any extra money in terms of what they pay for their permit. Obviously in the future if we continued with a smolt programme it would cost everyone more, so we must try to determine what offers best value for money in relation to returns of fish.

River Leven: The possibility of running a smolt programme.

Smolts imprinted on the River Endrick and put into the River Leven Spring 2010.

This August we hope to be gathering an extensive collection of fin tissue of R. Leven parr to gain DNA data information from the River Leven. Eric Verspoor quite possibly the foremost expert in DNA and genetics in the world has offered to come down and help us with the collection etc. The results from this could make it possible for us to run either a smolt or fingerling project on the River Leven. We believe the River Leven has suffered along with other rivers throughout the country from low returning adults but also with seals entering the river,  particularly during the winter period, Seals have been seen eating adult salmon and sea trout in the River Leven particularly in the winter and spring and this must surely be impacting on the spawning potential and survival of adult fish in the River Leven. The river leven also has no shortage of mergansers to predate on the existing fry and parr. One might conclude from this what is the point in trying to improve salmon numbers if the fish are predated on? Taking a negative view of all things and doing nothing about it is not an option.

If the DNA analysis of the genetic makeup of the parr from the River Leven is completed before October of this year it could be possible to begin the commencement of the catching up of brood stock on the river leven to enable us to run a smolt programme on the river leven itself. There is little point in promising what you can’t deliver though and with our schedule of work building up already it would require help from those who fish regularly on the leven and are keen to help with the catching of brood fish for us to have a chance of doing such a programme this year.

The river leven poses its own set of problems never before tackled by the SIWG, as the river is much larger and therefore almost impossible to obtain brood fish by electro-fishing. There are several options open to us, one of which is to have cages placed around the river at certain points, but that poses its own set of problems. The other alternative is to net the fish out with the use of an electrified trammel net. These nets are expensive (about £5,000) but the expense would be worth it if we managed to get a smolt programme up and running for the river leven. We would have to get DNA checks done on each fish to determine of the fish was a resident leven spawning fish, if not it would be returned.

At present we favour the cages along with an application  for an extension of the season, we could have selected anglers attempt to catch brood fish for us and SIWG  and transporter tank could be on standby each day to take captured brood fish away.

Since we do not have a holding tank set up for the leven and even if we attempted to set one up, the security issues involved would probably rule out such a setup. For that reason the imprinting would be done by stocking the river itself with the pre-smolts and hoping the mergansers would not get most of them in the period between stocking and the fish smolting which is roughly five weeks. We will as always listen to and try and take into consideration advice from a variety of sources before coming to a decision.  At this stage all we can do is see how quickly things develop and move with those developments.

Evaluated the success or otherwise re the smolt/fingerling stocking:

Evaluation is crucial to determine the success or otherwise of any one of these projects. The L.L.A.I.A. is happy to include and work with the Loch Lomond Fishery Trust through project related funding as appropriate and seek the involvement and advice of Marine Scotland and S.N.H. to see what can be done to evaluate the work. Accurately evaluating such work is not as simple as it sounds so we will have to see how things work out. There is obviously a cost in the evaluation process and that cost has to be within acceptable parameters otherwise it becomes as costly to evaluate as it does to produce the smolts/fingerlings!

We have stated at a recent meeting (Chairman and LLFT biologist) that any immediate and future funding on projects that do not directly improve or sustain salmon and sea trout stocks would have to offer excellent value for money as ultimately it is members money that will be used to fund any such work. Therefore we expect to see a multiplying of at least two before we would fund any such project. In simple laymen terms if the llaia give funding (as an example only)of say £5000 to the fishery trust there will also be funding of at least £10,000 coming from other sources giving a combined £15,000 of funding for that particular project.  As stated, funding projects that directly increase the fish stocks could be excluded.

We have given a specified amount to the llft recently that will allow the biologist to determine the amount of available wetlands in the upper Endrick spawning catchment. This should help us determine the optimum numbers of juvenile fish the area can support etc. This work passes our two times multiplying re funding.  This is a wide ranging and vitally important aspect of good fishery management. We will inform our members in due course about this type of work and how it can help us in managing the system.

Marking fish has posed its own set of problems and currently the options are just not good enough! However some of the marking methods that are unsuitable for returning adults could be used within the system to determine the survival differences between fingerlings and smolt stocking to some extent and therefore are likely to be tried out with the next batch of fingerlings/smolts.

The holding tank on the River Douglas: S2s held for imprinting and smolting

Conclusions: When you look into the holding tank in the picture above it warms your heart and gives you proof and hope that fishery management work has indeed being happening and is continuing to be carried out in our system. It does not guarantee success, but we both conclude that although only a percentage of the actual fish returning will get caught, the number of adult fish that remain uncaught will gradually boost the stock of spawning fish into the rivers, which in turn should also lead to a higher output of natural smolts with a further corresponding increase of adults. This chain reaction of increased adult spawning and subsequent increasing numbers of smolts returning to sea will it is hoped keep building until the natural optimum smolt production is realised for the habitat holding capacity of the rivers, and these days with ever increasing pressures on fish stocks this work has got to be good news.

Co-ordinated habitat work: In anticipation of more adult fish returning in the next couple of years we will carry out specific habitat work to add to the habitat work done some years ago. Done in this manner we give the system the opportunity to have adult fish present to occupy any areas that have their habitat improved. This is sensible co-ordinated fishery management. We hope that anglers who fish the system continue to do so and give us your support during this extensive work period being done on the system you fish.

       Michael Brady & Angus MacRitchie L.L.A.I.A.

This is the beginning of a new development to improve the numbers of multi sea winter spring fish and summer fish as well as grilse and autumn salmon. We are also currently investigating to see if we can encompass the sea trout onto our programme. We must also be able to evaluate any work we do and ideally have an input by the LLFT biologist. We are all too aware that timescales and what suits LLAIA in carrying out stocking or habitat work might not necessarily be able to fit in with the LLFT biologist’s schedule in that particular year. With the marine mortalities now seemingly very high we have to act quickly wherever we can to ensure we sustain and improve our fish stocks.

In the immediate short term this work will be done by existing funds. Whether it continues into the future will be up to the membership to decide?

Anglers tend to look at their area where they fish and see if what we are doing will benefit them in any way? Catches depend on many factors. Our strategy allows everyone to benefit from our work. The River Leven and Loch Lomond anglers will benefit from a better run of spring fish and large summer fish as well as more grilse. Those who fish the River Endrick and River Fruin will mostly benefit from the increase in grilse

There has been a decline over the last two decades of returning adults throughout many rivers in Scotland. Our system has not been immune from these problems both in fresh water and at sea. This decline appears to be more pronounced in the west coast of Scotland. We hope our efforts make a difference.

The whole operation from start to finish has involved a lot of hard work, much of it unseen by our members.

One of three holding tanks for our S2s 

Another tank holding the S2s:……….Lovely

There were 13 individuals who travelled up to Fortwilliam and fin clipped our first batch of fingerlings in 2009. It takes longer to fin clip the smaller fingerlings than the large parr. That first trip had us arriving at the hatchery at 10am and leaving at 8pm having initially left our varying destinations at around 7am and not getting home until 11pm.

Another trip to Fort William: Fin clipping the adipose fins March 2010.

The next fin clipping involved the large parr (pre-smolts) and was a much faster operation partly because the fish were larger and easier to clip and also because there were less fish involved. It still took us a long time but at least we were leaving Fortwilliam before it was dark!

Here is an S2 Parr with the adipose fin showing in front of the tail at top of fish. The adipose fin looks like a piece of fatty tissue.

The same fish with the adipose fin clipped: This fin is neatly clipped but some will only be partially clipped.

Duncan Ferguson: It’s all go with the team working like a conveyer belt. Fast and efficient, all 16,000 S2 Parr all fin clipped in the one day!

Although the first fin clipping involved 13 people and took from early morning till late at night. We would not impose that on our members and helpers again but stress it is hard work and at times you feel we are never going to finish!

An enthusiastic team: Andrew Gilchrist and Angus MacRitchie. (Note there is still snow on the ground)

We had Euan McGrandles wife and son at the fingerling clipping, now we have Gibby’s wife helping out, and doing a good job at that. Every little bit helps…..

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You get the occasional er……..bright character amongst the team: Jim Freeman, he thought he was going skiing in the highlands!

We also had another visit up to Fortwilliam and completed the Fruin fish fin clipping. It was disappointing to hear that the numbers of Fruin fish that reached a size that would allow them to smolt in the spring of this year was much lower than expected. The harsh winter meant that growth was much restricted and out of a possible 8,000 fingerlings we got about 3,500 pre-smolts. There is little that can be done when mother nature intervenes!

The good news though is that there are another probable 9,000 fingerlings of Fruin stock that are now large parr!! These fish will be ready for collection possibly in September of this year, all of which will smolt next spring! We hope to have the habitat improvements carried out prior to this stocking. We also have an extra batch of River Fruin fry that have been sent up to Fortwilliam to be reared up to fingerlings and they too will be ready for collection this autumn. All these fish will be available to stock the Fruin this year and next spring. We also have fry given to Jon Gibb this spring that we are hoping to get 8,000 fruin and 8,000 Endrick  S1 smolts from next spring.

The next stage after the fin clipping was to get the fish transported down safely and in good condition. When you have 16,000 large parr (S2s) you don’t take chances. We also had S1s to go into the River Fruin but they came down one month later. We felt it was playing safe to transport down the larger S2s a month earlier, just in case they imprinted earlier due to their larger size. Much of this work is all a learning curve but we must also use good common sense and try and remove as many risks as possible.

A welcome sight to behold: Solway Transport gets the job done.

Solway Transport have specialised trucks with separate tanks, each tank has its own oxygen supply controlled separately and temperature regulated. This particular truck has four separate tanks, ideal for us as we required each tank to be filled with Douglas fish and Endrick fish and further separated by the smolts that were going to be stocked out into their respective river and those fish that would be kept in the holding tanks.

The team prepared and ready for the arrival of the truck.

The team were all waiting for the truck to arrive. Our Chairman and Fishery Manager met up with the truck at a pre-arranged destination.

 One of the trucks containers: Netting the fish out!

Ye old cock sparrow (Matt Stewart) netting the fish out of the container.

The oldest wee sparrow had jumped up on top of the truck to net the fish out. At 75 that’s not bad is it.

Half the fish are transferred into their respective holding tanks.

The green coloured box is the feeder and there is also an automated control installed to bring on an electric pump in an emergency if the water supply to the tank failed. Dave Sunman  looks on….reminds us of our playful boyhood playing in the rain.

The automated control system is the brainchild of our fishery manager and is operational on both the River Endrick and River Douglas. Unfortunately we have no power source for the River Fruin tank so there is more risk when imprinting the Fruin fish, all other things being equal.

Its hard work but the team are just delighted to be involved (that’s our story and were sticking to it !!!)

The work was well co-ordinated with the fishery manager’s team handling the transfer of fish into the holding tanks and our Chairman’s team handling the stocking out into their respective streams. The Endrick fish though had to be kept in a separate holding tank until the paperwork came through to allow us to stock a portion of the fish into the Endrick. Aye red tape even at this stage! Obviously the less handling the better but some things cannot be avoided.

Fish are transferred from the truck into the LLAIA trailer and specially designed fish transporter tank.

The day in question was possibly the wettest day of the year so far. Typical Scottish weather but it made little difference to this lot who seemed to enjoy the experience of it all.

Alastair Mair (our Treasurer) and Dave Sunman putting out the S2s on the upper reaches of the River Douglas.

We should explain to members that because of the harsh winter in 2008/9 none of the fingerlings reached a size that would smolt in the following spring of 2009. Because of this the original 8,000 fish from the Endrick and 8,000 fish from the Douglas had to be reared an extra year hence the term S2s rather than S1s. The one and two representing the number of years S1s being one year and S2s being two years.

It is to John Gibbs credit that the fish were healthy and in good condition.

Co-ordinated walking: Stewart Mair in the middle, with Dave Sunman and Alastair Mair.

 More fish into the River Douglas: Looking to the future.

The River Douglas was stocked directly with 4,000 pre smolts. We should explain that the S2s were much fatter and larger fish than you would get from your S1s which meant that the volume of fish was substantially higher with S2s. The four metre holding tanks could only hold a specified amount of fish in volume terms. In other words we could only hold a percentage of the 8,000 S2s. It was decided to stock the Douglas with half the S2s and allow the imprinting to take place within the river itself. Since the Douglas had not been stocked over this last two years with any fry there would be no worry with displacement of existing fish or competition. The other 4,000 S2s from the Douglas were put into our holding tank to be imprinted on the Douglas and released into the River Leven after imprinting was completed in about five weeks time.

Jim Freeman and Andrew Gilchrist stocking the River Endrick with the S2s.

All numbers are estimates obviously. We were concerned that stocking the River Endrick directly with a percentage of the S2s would result in greater predation. There was also the possibility of some displacement and obviously competition from existing salmon parr.

Superb quality fish: How many will the Mergansers, Herons etc. get?

We stocked the Endrick directly with about 3,500  pre smolts, the rest were put into the holding tanks on the Endrick. We stocked into the River Leven around 4,200 smolts after first imprinting on the Endrick holding tank. The overall numbers of smolts eventually stocked were much in line with our expectations.

Stocking the River Endrick at Fintry with pre-smolts.

Stewart Mair stocking the Endrick: Another wet day unfortunately!

So just to be clear the River Douglas was stocked directly with 4,000 S2 smolts and the River Endrick stocked directly with about 3500 S2 smolts, thus one of the major hurdles was completed. We decided to keep as many Endrick fish in the holding tanks as possible as mortalities from stocking the Endrick within the upper Endrick DNA genetic area as stated was likely to be higher than stocking them into the River Leven after imprinting. We naturally took advice from others with plenty of experience in this field. It was also important to time the stocking to a certain part of the 24 hr. day and select a suitable place.

A quick count of the marganser population on the River Leven had 37 birds throughout the river. Had we stocked the smolts throughout that area then they obviously would be predated on by most of the mergansers prior to smolting downstream to the sea. It was decided to use some measure of common sense here and stock as close to the tidal area of the leven as possible and to stock all of the imprinted smolts in one confined area. This we felt would actually reduce the overall predation and time factor before the fish would smolt and quickly head out to sea. Also by stocking in greater numbers this could reduce the feeding available for such a large number of smolts and this would also encourage the smolts to migrate downstream foraging for food. The fish would not have far to go before entering brackish water and hopefully from then on would head out to sea. We also stocked in the evening period which gave limited time for predation as nightfall soon arrived. it also gave valuable time for the smolts to get accustomed to this strange environment after being reared for some time in tanks.

The system has never been stocked before with its own smolts, so this was another milestone achievement by the LLAIA through the help of association members and helpers for which the current committee are very grateful.

The key members who look after things at the hatchery.

There are a whole group of people that do varying amounts of work concerning the stock enhancement but the guys above are the ones who look after things and ensure there are no major mishaps.

PROBLEMS IN THE MARINE PHASE ARE REDUCING ADULT FISH RETURNS.There can be few anglers, scientists and conservationists that would argue with the above statement, indeed it is the main reason why adult salmon are returning to freshwater in fewer numbers each year. This is despite sterling efforts by some river systems in opening up previously inaccessible areas to migratory fish. Other river systems like the Spey and Tay with their extensive spawning catchments have also suffered badly over this last few years. For example, the trout and salmon magazine Spey report quotes around 30 spring fish caught throughout the whole length of the Spey in the month of March this year 2010. Disappointing figures indeed from a well known spring salmon fishing river!!On a recent stocking workshop attended to by our Chairman he heard David Summers from the Tay saying he had great difficulty getting anglers to understand that the problems were largely at sea and that their stocking efforts must represent a tiny portion of the potential stock that makes up the overall juvenile populations of a large system like the River Tay. Some have suggested we have what we have and if it is not good enough you might just have to live with it. Well we dont need to ask anglers what would happen if this committee adopted that take on things on the Lomond system. Anglers would leave and our income would drop and poaching would reduce the fish stocks to a level not worth bothering about.

One might ask, why we are bothering to stock if the problems are largely at sea. The short answer is that not all systems are equal. Some river systems have extensive spawning and habitat available for fish to spawn whilst others have limited amounts of both spawning and habitat available. When the marine phase was fine we all had good stocks of fish and everyone was happy. Now the situation has altered dramatically and whilst those systems with good spawning potential like the Tweed Tay and Spey are at the mercy of the marine phase, other systems with limited spawning / smolt producing habitat available are even more at risk and therefore have to ensure that their systems are managed more professionally than ever before to try and negate the impacts on adult survival of this current marine phase.

We have a fantastic system with such varied sport unrivalled anywhere else in this country.We must do whatever we can to ensure that there are sufficient fish returning to the system to spawn and also sufficient fish to provide some measure of sport for our members and permit holders. Increasing the production of smolts will help our system and provide some measure of support whilst the marine phase continues to cause alarm amongst all likeminded people. There has been a lot of criticism of stocking in general from a whole variety of sources, but most of that criticism is about stocking with unsuitable stock fish. We have used stock from a particular river and its specific genetic makeup and stocked that river with fingerlings and or smolts. Current practice and science based evidence is stating that if you want to stock. use only fish (progeny) from that river to stock that river.

Do our rivers require stocking? Are they not already adequately populated by juvenile fish? We do not believe they are but if we want to be scientific about it then we do not know. That is why we have asked the LLFT to find out if the upper Endrick stock of fish now running the system is adequate to fully occupy the available habitat. Past data will possibly be of limited use as stocking within the upper Endrick genetic DNA area has taken place with fed fry over a fairly long period of years. We are not sitting back waiting to find out the results. We are expanding our smolt production by concentrating on increasing the available spawning areas and habitat for the returning fish to utilise.

RIVER ENDRICK: ABOVE THE LOUP OF FINTRY:

For example we have about eight miles of spawning habitat available on the upper River Endrick basin. This is upper Endrick DNA population stock.  Historically the River Endrick gets the chief run of salmon of this system and the best of the spawning is within that eight miles. Obviously there are a variety of burns that hold sea trout and salmon but ignoring that fact we have eight miles of prime spawning areas. There is a further two miles of spawning unavailable to migratory fish due to the Loup of Fintry a series of large inaccessible falls that prevent access to a further two miles of water above the Loup.We have elected to stock with salmon fingerlings above the Loup but at present we only utilise one of the two miles available. If we can get the abstraction that takes place at the top end of the Loup of Fintry stopped then we could have two full miles to utilise for the production of smolts. That could mean a 20% increase in the number of smolts leaving the upper River Endrick genetic DNA stock and this would provide a boost to smolt production whilst problems at sea remain.

The production of smolts is largely dependent on the available river area wetlands. Obviously if water is abstracted from the Endrick in low summer flows the wetland area is further reduced and so too is the production of smolts. That is why it is crucial to get the abstraction stopped now. This is something that we feel should be tackled head on by various organisations with an interest in the Loch Lomond fishery.

RIVER DOUGLAS: ABOVE IMPASSIBLE FALLS:

We intend to do the same type of strategy with the Douglas. The Hydro Scheme now built and up and running might well reduce the flows coming down the falls and in turn make the difficulty in collecting brood stock that bit easier. The Hydro Scheme project after representation from the association has a fish pass designed into the dam, but naturally only for downstream passage of smolts.

There are three miles of spawning habitat above the falls. There is very little natural spawning available to migratory fish in the River Douglas below the falls. We have used salmon from the upper River Endrick genetic DNA pool to stock the River Douglas with. Some might argue with that practice but the river is in practical terms a Virgin River and introducing fed fry a number of years ago was found to be very successful. We have since taken brood stock from these returning progeny and used them for our current smolt programme. The returns from the smolt operations on the Douglas should provide us with adult fish to stock the Douglas with and hopefully as sufficient adults return allow us to place adult fish above the falls to spawn naturally.

We carried out a small scale samples from the Douglas returning fish and found that a high percentage were multi sea winter. We will require more samples to establish if this will continue to be the case or not.

RIVER FRUIN: MAJOR HABITAT WORK ON UPPER REACHES

There are other major projects we are currently looking at. One is to increase the habitat for parr on the River Fruin, this is something we have identified many years ago but will consult the LLFT Biologist to see if he agrees it would be a worthwhile venture. We believe it would increase the smolt production from the upper section of the River Fruin. Since we will have around 9,000 large parr this Septemeber (that will potentially be S2 smolts next spring) it would make sense to have the habitat improved prior to this stocking if at all possible in order to accomodate such numbers of parr.

THE LUSS WATER:  RESTORATION OF  PRIME SEA TROUT WATER

We are currently investigating the restoration of the Luss Water as a prime sea trout spawning river. Thus we are looking at the possibility of running a sea trout smolt programme project to encourage more spawning fish back on the redds. The pros and cons will be looked at before a decision is made.

RIVER LEVEN SMOLT & FINGERLING PROGRAMME

Although doubtful it is possible we could start the programme this autumn, obviously as stated it could well depend on getting the DNA work carried out then examined and achieving favourable results from the DNA gathering project itself. We feel it makes sense to keep all sections of our fishery healthy and sustainable. Running a River Leven programme achieves just that!

REMOVING THE RISK OF PROBLEMS AT OUR HATCHERY

We have to look closely at the risks we are taking when we run any kind of stocking but obviously running a smolt programme does involve a lot of risk and things can quite easily turn to disaster. We must try to reduce this risk wherever we can. With this in mind our Chairman has spoken with Jon Gibb and  it is intended to run a trial this coming year by taking our brood stock up to Drimsallie which has a more than an adequate water supply which has always restricted us at our own hatchery. Indeed the fact we have managed to run our hatchery for the last decade and more with an average input of only six litres of pumped water per minute from a burn quarter of a mile away says loads about both the internal re-circulating design and back-up facilities we have installed and also the professionalism of the hatchery staff.

As an aside, another advantage of running a smolt/ fingerling programme is that you do not require as many brood fish from the rivers (meaning more are left to spawn naturally), as you require to grow less fry on in relative safety to the fingerling / smolt stage than the number of fry required to be placed in the wild to achieve the same output of fingerling parr / smolts.

The plan is for Jon Gibb to strip the fish when ready, tend the eggs and rear the fry to the stage we would normally have handed them over to grow on. Thus we leave the looking after of the hatchery to another professional person who has the benefit of living and working beside his hatchery site 24 hours each day. We capture the brood fish, we hold them until we have sufficient numbers, then we mark the fish with a pan jet to identify each fish from each river source and deliver them to Drimsallie, We collect the spent fish and return them to their original river and area they were taken from and await the collection of fingerlings and smolts etc.

This will give our fishery manager more time to organise all the attendant paperwork, liaise with interested bodies for permissions, advice etc., construct new smolt tanks if required, carry out maintenance work in relation to the existing smolt tanks / other brood holding facilities etc., organise and participate with catch up teams for brood fish at weekends and midweek. Organise and participate with teams to stock the fingerlings in autumn and organise and participate in the looking after of the smolts during the spring periods. Other important work like habitat improvements and overseeing the restoration of the Luss and other small streams can then be possible. This new initiative will still leave us with risks but at least they will be reduced and controlled.

THE CLYDE ESTUARY AND ITS SEA LOCHS: SPECIAL PROTECTIVE STATUS

We have tried before but must try again to get this area protected from all commercial trawling activities. It would require a lot of dialogue and discussion but if we dont try we dont succeed.

The reason behind our strategy and why we selected the respective areas:

We have worked extremely hard and garnered many years of knowledge from within the system as well as knowledge from every part of the country and beyond as well. Our strategies are therefore based on solid ground or foundations if you like. They are the result of a huge amount of hours unseen by our members and brought into play when the time is appropriate and the conditions are right.

Today fish stocks are under threat from high mortalities at sea. What are we to do to combat this?  In a system like the Loch Lomond System which has a limited amount of habitat available for fish to spawn and a limited amount of nursery areas for our fry to develop to smolts and head out to sea, we have to look carefully and respond positively.

We realised early on that the key to improvements is to significantly increase the production of our smolts. But simply increasing the production of smolts without any thought to the type of brood stock used where the brood stock came from etc and the areas to stock could end up not making any difference or worse it could be a negative step in trying to improve fish stocks.

We therefore took our time and watched others develop their method of stock enhancement whilst we continued to learn and gain a greater understanding of our own system.

Some scientists suggest that fish bred in captivity do not do as well as fish that have survived in nature and hatched out in redds. It is a fair point but only if you have plenty of spare spawning fish! Ron Campbell Tweed biologist at a recent stocking workshop suggested that around 97% of fry die within the first three months. So if we can use suitable progeny to increase the survival and still get fish that can survive and return to provide sport and to reproduce we have played an important role improving things.

We are very confident that stocking with the fingerling stage will provide us with smolts that are every bit as wild and natural as those fry hatched out by nature in the redds and have made it to the smolt stage. But just like our wild smolts they will be subject to predation for every day they live in freshwater, whereas some of the smolts coming from the Endrick/Fruin/Douglas are put into the River Leven after imprinting. Thus mortalities are limited in the freshwater environment. The biggest worry with hatchery smolts is their possible weakness in being sucessful in foraging for natural food in the sea as evidence suggests smolts survival is dependent on the fish rapidly putting weight on as quickly as possible to allow them to grow to a size that allows them to evade predation.

We simply don’t know if the same can be said of the hatchery reared smolts given they have been fed on pellets for much longer and have never had to forage for natural based food until they are actually released, whereas the released fingerlings have had to forage at times (depending on temperatures) during the winter and spring months for natural food or they will not survive to the smolt stage, however before the fingerling parr are stocked into the rivers they were grown on in exactly the same conditions as the smolts and subsequent electro fishing and trapping of these fin clipped fish have shown decent survival, so adapting to finding food in the wild will hopefully not be too much of a problem for the smolts.

For the time being and with the money available we will continue with both fingerlings and smolts. The River Leven smolt programme if started involves less risk in losing any or all of our fish at the holding/imprinting stage since the fish will be put into the River Leven to imprint and not put into holding tanks. The areas stocked within the Leven would have to be looked at closely for optimum survival. We are also offsetting the predation of spawning adult fish on the leven that are taken by seals. The downside to this is that the Mergansers etc will obviously get a greater percentage of them before they leave and head out to sea. It will also be more difficult to capture the brood fish from the River Leven, but whoever said these things are easy!

We hope that you have taken some heart from the work that has happened on behalf of the members and permit holders to maintain and develop the Lomond Fishery and we will keep you posted as the programme develops. Many thanks to all our members and permit holders.

Loch Lomond: A 25lb Springer caught in May 2010.

There was 31 springers reported caught this year 2010 Well down on last years but still reasonable given the returns in other river systems as highlighted in this report. Hopefully our work will see a few more added to the totals in the very near future.

THE STOCK IMPROVEMENT WORKING GROUP

 

 

 

 

THE LOUP OF FINTRY: RIVER ENDRICK

In our spring 2008 report we explained our rationale for stocking with fry and operating a hatchery and why the Loch Lomond system requires hatchery based help in the current climate. It will help you to understand things better if you read our spring 2008 report before reading this report.

In the spring report of 2008 we hinted then of another stage in our hatchery operations. So in this report we explain how we have added two more stages to our hatchery based work which we believe will boost the salmon stocks in the Loch Lomond system and hopefully provide increased catches for our members and permit holders and result in more salmon spawning throughout the system.

None of us on the committee of the LLAIA have blinkered views on the worth of hatcheries be it stocking with fry, parr or smolts. We are neither pro-hatchery nor anti-hatchery, we are here to manage the fishery and do what we believe is best for the system.

There are many stocking programmes and smolt programmes out there that others are doing and we wish them all success. However we believe we have the safest method in place taking into consideration all that is presently known. There are a number of scientists that do have entrenched viewpoints  on stock enhancement. We keep an open mind and we know only too well that it is easy to manufacture a report to suit your own views. It is clear from our dealings with a variety of scientists that being completely open minded about stocking can be a very difficult stance to take for some!

Look at the difference in size of these fish: They started off the same size but not all fish are equal? Do the much larger fish when they reach adults produce bigger eggs and more likely to produce better surviving fry in the wild?

There is no shortage of anglers with the exact opposite view that stocking works just by throwing fish into a river without due consideration of as many pros and cons as can be weighed up. Genetics will become increasingly important in the future but we are wary that some scientists could misinterpret  results and impose their own conclusions while we are at the start of this branch of science with a lot of work to be done before firm conclusions can be drawn that are accepted by all.

We asked the Scottish Office to fund a comprehensive and thorough evaluation of our specific programme and after five years we would then know whether it was good for the system or not. Unfortunately no money was available so we will be limited on our own valuation which due to lack of finance will not be as thorough as we would have liked.

In the Loch Lomond system we are fortunate (or just simply lucky) that although salmon stocking has taken place over a great many years from the main spawning stream for salmon (River Endrick) This present committee have always ensured that the resultant fry have been stocked into that same upper Endrick area.

There has been no mixing of upper and lower Endrick fish re-genetics. This is important as genetic evaluative work carried out to date has shown that there appears to be two distinct genetic groups, i.e. an upper Endrick group and a lower Endrick group, showing that any previous stockings over the last 100 years or so has not damaged the genetic structures in place within the river.

Our programme takes fully into account the genetics and puts our specific programmes in as good a position as can possibly exist with current knowledge available. But let’s be abundantly clear on this issue. If we waited for the advancement of science in the hope that all will be revealed we could be waiting a long time and meanwhile the threats to fish stocks continue. Given the choice of do nothing or do something we are pro-active on this one

We have tried to help the ordinary angler by incorporating as much information as possible in this website report, well aware that it is viewed by many people in all walks of life. We have nothing to fear in what we are doing and operate as always with a view to helping the system by ensuring we operate best practice whilst taking into account all known factors. The LLAIA as an association that manages the system is doing all it can with our limited resources to protect and improve fish stocks. We hope you find the report helpful.

Most anglers have heard of habitat work and some anglers just presume it is the answer to all of our problems without realising that all fisheries are not equal. Habitat work could mean one thing to one fishery and an entirely different thing to another. Much depends on your own individual system and whatever the circumstances are within each fishery.

SIWG Removing blockages from streams.

Over the years the SIWG have removed many blockages in various streams, some of the worst blockages were in streams on the east shoreline running into Loch Lomond. As well as this we have also been involved in the planting of trees in the main spawning headwaters of our most important streams. This type of work helps to redress a small part of the negatives that occur around the system.

SIWG: Tree planting to improve the habitat is just one way of improving things: But these days it is simply not enough!

The existing hatchery programme ie re-stocking with fed fry will continue and can mitigate against redd wash out and a host of other negatives. As always we will continue to review this programme and adjust wherever and whenever desirable with a view to operating best practice whenever possible.

Fishery Manager Angus MacRitchie stocking with fry: but more needs to be done if we are to see improved runs of fish in the future.

The Committee of the LLAIA have always kept a close eye on other developments that could boost fish stocks. A decade ago we were impressed by others who had started doing smolt programmes. After visiting many such fisheries and seen how they were doing things we left with a desire to go down that route and ultimately carry out our own smolt programme. However we decided to hold fire, wait and see how others got on with “their smolt programmes” and when the picture becomes clearer, operate our own smolt programme taking into account all that has been learned by others. This approach made sense and in any case we had major problems to sort out at that time, like a huge debt to sort out! We also had learned a lot about ownership of fishings and fishing leases to alert us of the absolute need to secure our own fishings by making sure the association had its own significant stake in the fishery before going down the route of expensive smolt programmes.

By 2008  the association had built up a significant stake in the River Endrick with the purchase of Drumtian, Wilsons, Cowdenmill fishings and Hunters fishings. With our own members security and control of such fishings now in the hands of those who care, protect and manage the river we felt the association could move on to a bigger development with regard hatchery operations

Fishing stretches bought outright:  Fly only restrictions on all stretches helps to conserve fish stocks on the River Endrick an SAC site.

It would be pointless introducing conservation measures if those measures could not be realistically enforced to any degree. Introducing measures that result in lost members results in lost income without which you cannot afford to bailiff and protect the fish! Our conservation measures have been measured and work effectively; we will increase such measures only when we feel it will deliver an improvement on the general management of the fishery re- fish stocks.

Despite our efforts over the years it was becoming increasingly clear that the continued build up of negative factors facing migratory fish stocks today, required more effort than what we were currently doing. With marine mortalities now having a major negative factor, fisheries that do not have an abundance of spawning streams available have to ensure they do more than just tend to a few habitat issues or just stock with fry to survive and prosper.

Observations out on the rivers and information from some electro fishing surveys clearly showed that to take a precautionary stance and in effect do nothing was simply burying your head in the sand. The normal hatchery operation we cover such as the rearing of eggs to fry and the stocking out of the fry during the late spring and early summer period gave a boost to the juvenile populations and since the fry were put out when the availability of food was more likely to be satisfactory the survival of such fish might well have helped in our efforts to improve matters. It also showed we were not prepared to let our system deteriorate like many of the Scottish North Western rivers and streams.

There is a lot of additional predation taking place by avian and by the likes of mink etc on our migratory juveniles, than was the case previously. By the end of a normal growing season what is left of our juvenile populations will go through the winter months mostly hiding in amongst the boulders and waiting until the waters start to warm up in the spring before resuming feeding and in most cases the fish will endure at least one more feeding season and winter before providing us with a smolt run the following spring. It is important to be aware that the committee see any of our hatchery based programmes as being an aid to compensating for all the current negative factors affecting our salmon stocks and not a substitute for the natural spawning that takes place each year. Whatever survives from the migration to the marine environment as salmon or grilse ultimately provides us all with sport and is the future spawning stock of the system.

It is generally accepted that during the first growing season the fry are most vulnerable to predation and surviving the first winter is difficult, this is a pinch point and losses are at their highest throughout these periods.

TWO NEW HATCHERY PROGRAMMES LAUNCHED BY LLAIA

Jon Gibb from the Lochy system inspects our first batch of fry given to him to rear for us in 2008. The beginning of a relationship that we hope will last for at least five years.

We have over this last two years worked hard in developing two new programmes to compliment and add to our existing programme. We believe both programmes will significantly boost our salmon stocks in the very near future. Since we do not have sufficient water to rear eggs beyond the fry stage we have worked out an agreement with Jon Gibb of the Lochy system for him to rear our fry to fingerling/parr stage as well as a portion of fry right through to the early spring period as pre-smolts.

The deal worked out gives us access to facilities we do not possess and provides management (looking after) of our fry by one of the most experienced men in rearing smolts derived from wild parentage in Scotland. It does involve us in a lot more work and a great deal of preparation that involves many aspects of fishery management to consider.

Once the committee had made its decision to go ahead with these two new programmes the real work then began.

It would be rather difficult to run either of these two new programmes if you do not have tanks that will contain the pre-smolts or fingerlings when they are ready to be collected and returned back to the Lomond system. Our first job was to source and purchase suitable tanks at reasonable cost. Our chairman managed to source such tanks through Jon Gibb and others which as it turned out cost us nothing! Our thanks to those who helped out in this respect; it is greatly and warmly appreciated.

Getting large tanks like these for free saved our association thousands of pounds.

Locating and sourcing the tanks  looked like it was going to be the easy part. What about getting them moved from the present site and transported down to their destination?

Hauled up a steep path and ready for transportation: Our fishery manager has a steady hand on things.

A contractor was sourced and as it turned out a pretty impressive man behind the wheel of the truck ensured operations went from being almost impossible to……very difficult!

 The large four metre fibreglass tanks get lifted onto the truck for transportation down to the Loch Lomond system.

There was also the opportunity of obtaining smaller two metre tanks for the same price (nothing) so we took a load of the smaller tanks as well.

These tanks could be very useful in the near future for LLAIA.

With half the battle underway the really difficult part was moving such large tanks by road up some of the narrowest single lane tracks……a job seemingly impossible.

We required three separate destinations for the tanks. One of the tanks was for the River Douglas and the local farmer had said that no articulated truck had ever managed to get up this single track road, but then they never reckoned on Sandy the driver who did not know what impossible meant?

One of the most exciting moments for us was when the big truck came up over the brow of that little single track road with our last tank destined for the Douglas…. Sandy the truck driver had achieved the impossible!

After a long and hard 16 hour day the last tank gets dropped off at the River Douglas

A lot of further work was carried out like seeking permissions for each tank on the River Endrick, River Fruin and River Douglas etc and the setting up of each tank into its final position beside the watercourses. This might at first seem pretty straightforward but as we were to find out it was one problem after another and one obstacle after another to overcome.

With foundations now in place the tank was put into position.

Getting a proper gravity flow was essential so in some cases the length of the pipes had to be pretty long to utilise the gradient of the river etc.

With water flows critical it was imperative to ensure that the gravity flow was going to be sufficient to hold our pre-smolts.

Each selected area was limited to where we could get sufficient gradient to obtain maximum flows. For that reason each area had its own set of problems to overcome.

The River Douglas had its own problems but the other two sites were even more problematic. On the River Endrick, just getting the hole dug to take the bottom pipe presented quite a problem for Angus, Matt and their helpers.

These were the stones removed just to get sufficient depth for our drainage pipes in one of our sites.

Many anglers don’t realise just how much work is involved and the many technical aspects that have to be overcome in order that we achieve our aims such as overcoming airlocks and in one case installing automatic back up pumps. In the case of the River Fruin tank position, we actually had to hire a pneumatic drill to bore holes in the rock to put up a perimeter fence to protect the tank from cattle etc. It is also planned to extend an existing electric fence to this perimeter fence to dissuade cattle from approaching.

Angus MacRitchie fishery manager technical guru and labourer…………Its easy says Angus anybody could do it!

On a more serious note, this work requires a lot of help and assistance as you will see ithroughout this report. It is to members credit that many of them came out to help even if it was only to lift tanks into position, it was help that was greatly appreciated and would not have been done without them.

We had to use a bed of sand and gravel on this particular site.

We have used a huge amount of piping fittings and loads of other items required to get the work done. Fortunately the association had purchased a brand new trailer in 2008 which has paid for itself many times over already.

Now finished, the tanks all have a filter system in place to ensure no pollution from the pre-smolts reaches the river.

The filter systems above were just another obstacle to overcome. If everyone took such precautions towards keeping our rivers clean we would have fewer problems to deal with! Despite the huge work involved we now have all practical operations under control and working as planned.

In moving towards a more complex and involved hatchery operations it is important to have the right gear to deal with the new set-up. The purchase of the new trailer and specially designed fish transporter tank allowed us to achieve our aims with getting the new stocking programmes under way.

The associations new trailer and fish transporter tank: Duncan Ferguson helps out and is seen here after picking up the fingerlings/parr from Jon Gibbs hatchery.

The new fish transporter tank: New design made of plastic and better insulated than existing fibreglass tanks.

The inside of the tank: Good design ensures no sharp edges etc.

Shipped over from Germany the transporter tank will last a long time. It was a new design specially built for the job in hand. Design was just completed in 2008.

HATCHERY OPERATIONS: Another level up with our fingerling /parr programme

Stocking with fingerlings / parr during the late autumn period effectively bypasses the critical mass mortality from predation in that first growing year. By that time the fish are much larger and stronger and more capable of surviving through the first winter to the second year growing season.In late October 2008 and 2009 we stocked the upper headwaters of the River Endrick with around 20,000 fingerlings. They were put above the Loup of Fintry an impassable fall that prevented migratory fish from accessing another two miles of valuable spawning stream and habitat.

River Endrick above the Loup of Fintry stocked 2008 & 2009

We also decided to purchase a new mini-trailer since the old one was just about to collapse with wear and tear. We once again got a great deal through Indespension in Milngavie (see Paul the manager) if you need a trailer.

The new mini-trailer to take fry and fingerlings to the stocking area.

These wee mini trailers are great and easy to move about and a vital tool for Angus to get about without being restricted by the much larger trailer’s double wheel base and longer length.

so

Above the Loup has some great growing on habitat: Jim Freemen SIWG stocking the area at the end of  October.

One mile of this section has great habitat with the other mile currently rendered useless due to the present scheme of water abstraction from the River Endrick an SAC and SSSI site which holds the chief run of salmon from the entire system. Ironically this water abstraction takes place under low water conditions and has undoubtedly “a negative effect” on the production of smolts leaving the River Endrick. It is inconceivable that this water from the Loch Lomond catchment is being abstracted into a completely different catchment (Carron Valley Reservoir) and at other times of year compensation water is going down the Endrick (an SAC site) from Carron Valley Reservoir.

In utilising this extra valuable mile of water we effectively increase the nursery potential of the main spawning headwaters of the Endrick. Since we are stocking the area with fish at the fingerling/parr stage they are likely to do much better than if we had stocked the same fish as fry. We have little doubt that this stocking will add significantly to the production of smolts from the Endrick. In any stocking of this kind we believe that there will be a natural moving downriver of the surviving fish as they grow into much larger parr and this area will merge into the area below the Loup and help to ensure the upper river is achieving its maximum juvenile carrying capacity despite all the negatives currently being inflicted on the spawning streams.

The difference between stockings in the late spring compared to the late autumn period with fingerlings/parr is easily shown as we see in the two photos below.

Matt Stewart loading up Jon Gibbs transportation tank with our fry: These fry were being transported from the LLAIA hatchery up to Jon Gibb’s hatchery in the late spring of 2008.

Just take a look at the size of these fish being stocked at end of October 2009 compared to the photo above!

Note the huge difference a good growing season can make and the fact that all these fish are being put into a suitable stream and survival rates are likely to be so much better than stocking in the spring with fry.

Not all growing seasons are equal or so it seems. Last year was one of the poorest growing seasons for fish with water temperatures below normal. Our pre-smolts being reared for us did not reach sufficient size to provide us with pre-smolts that we would have utilised over spring 2009. Instead the parr have had to be held for another year and will be coming down to the Loch Lomond system as very large pre-smolts indeed during the early spring period of 2010.We should points out that  the 2008 growing season was the first time in roughly ten years that Jon Gibb could not produce S1 smolts.

Sometime in the early spring of 2010 we will be picking up around 16,000 plus S2 pre-smolts and around 8,000 S1 pre-smolts from Jon Gibb. They will be put into their respective areas.

 LLAIA our S2 parr in late October 2009 at Jon Gibbs hatchery

This year the growing season was more normal and the fingerling/ parr we picked up from Jon Gibb in late October were as you see in the photos of excellent size and superb condition.

The fingerlings/parr were from The River Endrick and the River Fruin stock.

The SIWG has just completed the stocking above the Loup with these superb fingerlings / parr during late October.  We are in talks with SEPA and SNH with regard the water abstraction scheme. If stopped as we believe it should be (read up on EEC directive re-cross water contamination) we will look towards stocking the area above the current abstraction which would further boost the smolt production of the River Endrick an SAC site.

The River Fruin has also been stocked throughout with this year’s fingerlings / parr and we are pleased with the effort.

As well as the existing programme and the two new programmes it is worth noting that the association committee are utilising the areas above impassable falls within our system. The River Douglas has an area of about three miles above the falls and we have stocked this area for a number of years now. We have taken returning adults from the River Douglas and used these returning adults’ progeny to introduce a smolt programme on that river. Electro fishing results above the falls have shown good survival rates of our stocked fry. Below the falls there are numerous salmon parr which we believe have come down from the stocked area to below the falls. There is very limited spawning area on this river below the falls. It is worth pointing out that scale reading from some of the returning adult fish captured by the SIWG has shown to have a high proportion of multi sea winter stock. Further scale readings and DNA would be useful. There is a Hydro scheme being built on the Douglas above the falls and there are facilities built into the new dam to allow fish such as brown trout or stocked salmon juveniles to migrate downstream without damage as they come over the dam.

Our large parr soon to become S2 pre-smolts in Jon Gibbs tanks 2009.

Permissions and other organisations involved: Since the smolt programme has been initiated a number of changes to the general working practices has been adopted and changes made by law. These changes are on-going and we expect increased scrutiny and protection against any possible threats to the well being of fisheries throughout Britian and not just Scotland wide. Whatever your perspective on these developments, they have been initiated to protect the interests of all fisheries particularly salmon and sea trout fisheries. We have no fear of such measures as they are for the general good of all fisheries and we have complied with a number of permissions already. SEPA for example have had to be consulted and applications for each holding tank applied for and the respective forms filled in etc. We currently have permissions for the Endrick holding tank and the River Douglas holding tank and we expect approval for the River Fruin holding tank well before we are ready to collect our pre-smolts. SEPA have indicated they do not foresee any problems with the Fruin application.

In August 2008 the movement of live fish act was introduced. It might be way overdue with the introductions of coarse fish over this past 30 years on Loch lomond and the River Endrick now well doumented, but it will help to prevent more introductions. Unfortunateley this new act means we have to get permissions to move our fry up to Jon Gibbs and back into the system. Last years applications were successful and the fingerlings/parr were stocked out as indicated in this report. The same with this years applications and other applications all related to the work we are doing to “improve the runs of salmon” into the Loch Lomond system.Collecting of brood fish is another application and SOP for our hatchery and other certificates are now required. These measures all designed to ensure that best practice are taking place all around the country. It is easy to complain about what some might feel are huge amounts of work (red tape) and does take up a lot of our limited time (resources) but they are introduced for a reason and there is a proven need for such measures.

We believe our permissions for the Douglas and Fruin are less rigorous and we expect to make progress more or less as planned. Marine Scotland (formerly FRS) and the Scottish Executive are involved in our applications.

With the River Endrick an SAC and SSSI site the permissions are far more stringent and involve SNH, Marine Scotland (formerly FRS) and the Scottish Executive.

Marine Scotland and the Scottish Executive have actually been very helpful in all discussions we have had with them, we do not foresee any major problems, just a hell of a lot of additional work to satisfy SNH concerns.

We have had permissions to collect brood fish from the Fruin and Douglas Water and hope the weather allows us a period whereby we can get brood fish.  There has taken place a meeting between all interested parties for the association to seek formal permissions for taking brood fish and address any concerns being expressed by SNH concerning the taking of brood stock from the  Endrick SAC. In effect we have the permissions to take brood fish from the Endrick but what we do with the fish has still to be formally decided upon. We see the current rainfall as the largest hurdle to climb right now!

Anglers will want to know will all this effort result in more fish returning to the Loch Lomond system and will it be to the long term benefit of the system. We don’t know just how successful any of this work will be? Within the committee we are confident that it will produce significant extra smolts leaving our system and therefore more adult salmon or grilse returning. It could well be that the fingerling / parr stocking might well produce better returns than the more expensive smolt programme but we don’t honestly know and neither does anyone else for that matter.

You might well ask, how does the imprinting work given that the fish are taken from each different part of the Lomond system and reared in a different water and then brought back down to the Lomond system. Firstly to be clear in some respects, we keep all three different stock separate from each other and likewise Jon Gibb at his hatchery.

They are separated at all times to be clear in this matter!

Another important point is that the Lochy hatchery is NOT on a Lochy water supply. This is something that has never given them concern. For instance the hatchery burn is not full of returning salmon!

The imprinting based on all available work done by others and scientific advice/reports etc is said to take place prior to the fish turning silver and beginning their journey downriver to the sea. In other words once the fish have donned their silvery coat they are imprinted wherever that occurs. This is why we must ensure that our smolts are back in our system prior to this taking place. To mitigate against competition from existing natural parr/smolts in the river, the pre-smolts are held in tanks and fed until they are acclimatised and imprinting has taken place. The pre-smolts are fed daily throughout that period. It is recommended that they are held in the tanks for at least three weeks prior to smolting.

The imprinting part of the smolt programme does give us added concerns and we do worry that those things are really that simple! In any new project being tackled for the first time we can only go on the advice of others who have been along this path before us.

Opinions will often be given by many people but at the end of the day we will be guided by the advice from those who run such programmes until science has categorically answered the imprinting life history of our salmon leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind.

It could well be that imprinting takes place from the day the fry hatched out and in varying stages throughout the fishes life the imprinting becomes stronger as each stage progresses i.e. the homing instinct improves through its life prior to smolting. This is just an opinion though, but it would explain why hatchery reared fish tend not to give as a good a return compared to natural wild stock on their first return (1st generation) but is said to improve from 2nd generation fish onwards. No absolute scientific evidence is available to prove this without leaving some doubt.

In carrying out such work we believe we have acted sensibly and with due consideration of any possible negative effects on the fishery. However as we gather more information we will be guided by that new information and adjust accordingly.

Despite all the scientific work carried out over the years there is still so much we do not know about the salmon. Questions like how many salmon are required to produce the optimum number of smolts? Does stocking of any kind work? Is there a particular type of fish genetically that competes and dominates over other fish?

In terms of stocking with fry we have conclusively proved without any doubt that stocking a virgin area with fed fry has resulted in a healthy population of different age structures of those resultant fry right up to pre-smolt stage in various parts of the river in question. We have further work to do to establish beyond doubt that it has resulted in decent numbers of those fish returning. Currently it does look positive but until fish that have returned are captured and DNA samples taken we cannot confirm…yet.

The River Douglas 2009: Salmon returning from the stocking by LLAIA?

There are so many variables in natural spawning and likewise in hatchery practice that always seems to further complicate things. For that reason we want to try and attempt to remove most of the doubt with regard our programmes. We are currently looking at the best method of evaluating our two programmes.

We believe our membership would very much prefer us to make the efforts we have made and give the smolt programme five years with ongoing evaluation rather than use such time effort and money in other directions like funding the installation of an expensive fish counter that in itself does not add a single fish to the system.

We will try when time is available to update everyone on our progress through this exciting period in the history of our association. Other work carried out in 2009 will be mentioned in due course. This is a very busy period for us now and we hope we have helped to inform our members and that of the public in this report.

The fishery manager and the committee would like to thank all members who have given such valuable help, either though the catching up of brood fish, fin clipping or assisting with the installation of the large tanks etc, it is very much appreciated

Merry XMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR

The SIWG Team:            End of November 2009

THE STOCK IMPROVEMENT WORKING GROUP
Hatchery Team

Matt Stewart (left) Angus MacRitchie (centre) and Jim Freeman (right) SIWG hatchery team 2008.

These are the main players in the SIWG hatchery team. A dedicated group of members all working hard for the benefit of The Loch Lomond system and the LLAIA members and permit holders.

 

Angus is our fishery manager. Years of experience and level headed.

Matt Stewart is one of the main dedicated helpers with looking after the eggs and fry.

Matt has been a member of the LLAIA for some years now. Matt has a nice gentleman like manner and has warmth of feeling that is immediately conveyed to the angler who by chance or otherwise meets up with Matt on Loch Lomond. Enthusiastic and philosophical he clearly enjoys every day he spends on Loch Lomond. He tends the eggs and fry with a care far above that which is normally seen.

Jim Freeman a member for many years and a great helper and friend of the LLAIA

Jim worked for the Glasgow Herald for many a year before retiring. He wrote many great articles on Loch Lomond. He now spends some of his spare time helping out doing hatchery work.

There are other SIWG members who are just as important, that help out during the catching up. Support in other ways also comes from committee members, chairman and vice chairman. Local farmers are also very helpful and often we find Angus or Matt being hurtled up the glen on the back of a quad bike or argocat with bucketfuls of fry to distribute in some of the streams upper reaches.

Why stock at all? It would take up a lot of pages here to explain in depth our reasons for having a hatchery and carrying out an enhancement program so let’s explain and try to be brief about it. Most river systems cover many miles of fishing’s as well as large spawning areas for their available fish stocks. Some river systems have a great deal of natural spawning and cover a huge geographical area. The Tweed system is possibly the best known and also probably the best managed system in Britain if not in Europe. The Tweed covers around 2,000 square miles which is blessed with a fairly large natural spawning availability. There is a great deal of publicity given to the recent surge in fish stocks on the Tweed system with the main reason being habitat work cited for this increase. Some of our committee have spoken to the people involved in such work, and have come to realise that the real improvement within the catchment area has been down to opening up previously blocked “natural spawning areas” that had been largely man made blockages (mostly road culverts and weirs put in for mills) done without due consideration of the fish life in those streams. Over 600 km of streams have since been cleared or opened up to allow the natural population of fish to reach these areas to spawn. There are few systems that could match the Tweed for the extent of natural spawning streams available for the salmon to spawn, never mind the removal of the Northumberland netting recently.

There are a whole range of systems from the superb level of the Tweed down to some that have a limited amount of available “natural spawning areas” for fish to spawn. Some of these systems have impassable natural falls that prevent migratory fish from reaching what would have been many miles of valuable spawning. The Loch Lomond System comes under that category.

 

The River Douglas. Miles of potential spawning available to the fish if only…….

Many years ago a well known fishery scientist carried out a desk top survey and found that the Loch Lomond system could support a huge amount of salmon and sea trout eggs above impassable areas on the streams running into the loch if stocked artificially with hatchery reared fry. Another scientist reckoned that the River Douglas would be suitable for salmon fry and could support an initial stocking of some 400,000 Salmon eggs. We mention this purely to demonstrate the potential that is missing from our own system.

These days with marine mortalities very high, the percentage of adult fish returning to the streams for a given smolt run are lower than what they were even ten years ago. So we must try to keep the balance in our favour or risk potential disaster.

Many of the small burns that run into loch lomond offer limited potential for surviving fry particularly in a severe drought. Whilst Loch Lomond itself offers a great big sanctuary for adult fish returning from their sea feeding excursion, it also offers accommodation for displaced fry and parr to grow on, as well as kelts recovering.

When nature is somewhat limiting in its offerings with regard access to natural spawning and knowing that the feeding zones at sea have decreased as a result of global warming, then other negative effects can have a disproportionate impact on our fish stocks. That does not necessarily mean any negative impact will initially be “seen to affect” the fish stocks. It just means we have to be aware of these factors and assess the situation at any given time. There are some items that have little instant impact initially on their own, but cumulatively they start to add up, the growing increase in protected fish eating birds and seals for instance and diffuse pollution of the land by farming practices, then the picture can change significantly. We have also had a number of major negative effects on the Loch Lomond system over this past 20 years where the impact on fish stocks can be seen more quickly. Fish Farms and the sea lice problems which mainly effect sea trout stocks, sheep dip and the destruction of both fish life and fauna within the affected areas, and problems with the marine survival of our fish stocks with mortalities very high compared to the fairly recent past. We at the LLAIA / SIWG are offering some assistance to re-dress the balance, by giving nature a wee helping hand. In doing so we have over the years helped to offset the imbalance that today’s current climate presents.

So every single year the SIWG set about to capture selected brood stock from specific streams, strip them of eggs and place them in our hatchery and use those resultant fry to stock the same stream, with some going to streams above impassable falls to maximise the available smolt production. As our understanding of salmon genetics has increased it is now our practice to ensure that only Endrick juvenile stock goes back into the Endrick and Fruin juvenile stock goes back into the Fruin etc. These fry in all probability would not have survived in such quantities as can be achieved in their controlled hatchery environment.

Matt removing the fry ready for transporting them to their new home!

When the numbers of returning fish from the ocean feeding grounds are low compared to the past it is important to maximise the resultant fry by avoiding the now prevalent flash floods (redd washout)and eel predation on redds etc. This allows us to supplement the natural spawning of both the areas where there is good spawning gravels and other areas that would be considered poor spawning habitat, but would be good for growing on fry and parr. This can only be a positive step. If the scientists are correct about the survival rate of smolts in the marine environment it means that only a fraction of the fish that would have returned as adults are previously returning! It is clear that during the good runs of the past, enough salmon and sea trout came back to fully utilise all available spawning within the rivers, this is not necessarily the case now to allow for angling and the variety of predation, and some of the other negative factors briefly touched on.

Such events give another positive reason to use a well planned stock enhancement hatchery programme to offset such natural events. We remain positive despite the challenges facing us as we do our bit to enhance the fish stocks. The sheep dip fiasco is now largely behind us, that has to be good news. The fish farms are still there but as we report, the slice treatment in the Argyll AMA (Area Management Agreement) with the fish farmers might well be having a positive impact on the Clyde estuary. Who knows what will happen with the marine climate as there is not much you can do with global warming is there?

As stated earlier, pollution, extremes of weather and predators such as seals and fish eating birds remain a threat, all having a negative impact. When you start to evaluate the situation you wonder why it is some scientists and other group’s state that you don’t need hatcheries or any form of enhancement through smolt rearing etc. It is precisely because of these impacts in our system that you DO need to re-dress the balance even if it means doing this artificially.

Many years ago a heronry was formed on a section of the river Endrick below Drymen. It was created (man- made) to assist the wildlife in that area! Are we to assume it is fine to assist the fish eating birds but not the fish! So we strongly feel that hatcheries are now vital to our needs.

 

 

These fry have responded well to first feeding and are healthy little blighter’s

Operating a hatchery from October through till mid June comes at a price. It is all part of the increasing running costs that the committee face as we try to offset the negative impacts. Neither is it all joy and excitement especially during the winter months as dead eggs have to be continuously removed. it can be a lonely and cold experience.

 

Angus transports the first- fed fry to the buckets ready for planting out.

Nevertheless once the eggs have all hatched and the temperature rises, conditions improve and once their little yoke sacs have been absorbed the feeding begins and the skill and dedication of our SIWG hatchery team comes into play big time.

Each trough is numbered to enable us to identify the eggs from different areas.

This year might well have caught out some hatcheries as the spring drought greatly reduced water supplies. Our hatchery already has a limited water supply so it is remarkable that we are still capable of producing fry under these drought conditions. The hatchery team liaise and work closely with each other to ensure this happens and a system has been devised and put in place to supplement the water flow to the troughs. As soon as the water supply goes down below a specified limit, three electric pumps automatically cut in and re-circulates the water. This is one of a number of safety features your hatchery team have built in to ensure the hatchery has worked satisfactorily over the years.

Looking after and operating a hatchery with the water supply we have is a skillful job, and as with most things in life, a degree of luck thrown in every now and again never goes wrong, if we are to be absolutely honest! i.e. regarding power cuts, droughts, floods, freezing etc.

This is the exciting part when you see the fry all looking healthy and everything is running smoothly.

Once the fry are fit and healthy which is usually sometime in late May the SIWG hatchery team start to get organised for the planting out of the fry.

Jim Freeman gets to work stocking the streams: River Endrick at Fintry Spring 2008.

The fry are carefully put out into the streams to hopefully grow into parr and then turning into smolts before heading out to the sea. Stock at too high a density and you simply throw away fry, stock at too low a density and you might not establish a decent head of young fish in the area stocked. It is all about getting the balance right.

The salmon fry are usually stocked in the main streams where they would naturally spawn.

The sea trout on the other hand are usually stocked in the small burns. It is vital to know where each species actually would spawn in nature. There are signs and clues to knowing this and gaining knowledge but practical work such as electro-fishing on the system you work in carried out by SIWG members, does speed things up somewhat.

Angus stocking a burn with sea trout : Spring 2008

One other important consideration in stocking is to ensure that if a poison such as sheep dip gets into a stream and wipes out all the fish we will have another stream close by that is healthy enough to allow us to remove some brood fish to strip and rear the eggs in our hatchery. The resultant fry will almost certainly be significantly more than would have survived if left in the original stream. The fry could then be stocked in both the original stream with excess fry going to the stream that was wiped out. This is providing an insurance policy against such disasters and is both sensible and practicable.

We have ensured the fish we had taken from the Douglas Water have been kept separate and are going back into the Douglas. This year the only stocking the Douglas is getting is derived from its own brood fish. The enhancement programme we have been running for the Douglas over this past five years is important to the system as it has established the success of the stocking policy. This knowledge improves our learning curve and along with other work being done gives us a greater understanding of the genetic makeup of our fish stocks. So far we are encouraged by the results and I’m sure the learning curve will continue as we adapt to any changing conditions. It’s a shame that certain people feel the need to run down the SIWG, the committee and the association at every opportunity. We research, we evaluate and we make decisions in the interests of the fish stocks and the membership.

As we continue to develop our stock enhancement program we hope it makes a worthwhile difference to the overall stock of young fish in and around the Loch Lomond system.

Some people take an entirely opposite viewpoint to hatcheries and their worth, but we believe that each system presents its own set of problems and circumstances. Only a fool would condemn all hatcheries and the work that takes place each year, just because some other system happens to have an abundance of natural spawning available. Each system has to be examined thoroughly, there is no one glove fits all scenario, we believe we are doing what’s best for the Loch Lomond system.

 

Stocking Sea Trout fry in small burns is crucial to the survival of our sea trout stocks. Spring 2008

Is stocking with fed fry enough? Will the stocking, along with the natural spawning provide sufficient returning adults to allow for the high mortalities at sea along with the other negatives mentioned and still supply a portion of fish to be taken by anglers and leave a sufficient stock of fish to populate at least all the available good natural spawning available throughout the Loch Lomond system?

That is a tough call to make these days. In an average year we might be fine, but what exactly is an average year? Does the number of fish caught always relate to the number of fish running?

There is sufficient evidence elsewhere to strongly suggest that some seasons the conditions overall for catching fish are more favourable than other seasons irrespective of the density of the runs of fish that year. A poor year for runs coupled with a favourable year for catching fish could seriously jeopardise our existing fish stocks. If that happened several seasons in a row we could be in real trouble.

From a committee point of view the LLAIA view the Loch Lomond fishery purely as a sport fishery. That means we will adopt anything within our means to ensure we have adequate stocks of fish to allow for poor marine survival, decent numbers taken by anglers and still have surplus stock to enable all good spawning areas to be fully utilised every season. We believe this can be achieved and financed by a business like approach to the running of the LLAIA and to the Loch Lomond system. As far as we are concerned, it is vital if we are to survive and flourish in the years ahead.

To achieve such a state of affairs we would have to significantly increase the numbers of smolts going out to sea. How do we do this if the numbers of returning adults might not be sufficient to allow for this?

To do this we would have to increase our salmon escapement capacity within the system. How? One way is to FORCE catch & release upon all anglers throughout the system over a period of years. Another way is to expand the hatchery to levels far in excess of our capabilities. Our water supply does not allow for this to happen. So we have to ensure it happens, HOW?

We already know how this can be done. Peter Lyons and Dave Sunman had seen how it was all done over in Ireland. Michael Brady went over to see hatchery expert Frank Reilly in Ireland and was shown round the whole set up from start to finish and the results it can produce. This all took place 12 years ago. Colin McCrory and Angus MacRitchie also paid subsequent visits and Angus and Matt and other committee members have also visited hatcheries within Scotland over the years. However this all takes money which was just not available until now, however we have now completed our Fishing’s reserve fund which will free up new funding for the improvement of stocks for the future.

We are now ready to move to the next stage in our stock enhancement plans and we are sure that our intelligent membership will by now suspect what we are thinking off, without us actually confirming it at this stage, however the usual ongoing research and costings are currently being fully investigated for value and feasibility.

We will confirm with the membership as soon as practicable when this research and costings are finalised, it is also sad that we have to be so secretive with our membership, and we apologise for this, but it is in the interests of the LLAIA. For the time being though we leave you with a picture of two of the main players in the SIWG who are quietly confident about increasing the systems fish stocks. The picture does suggest that these two men appear to be upbeat about the possibilities for our member’s future fish stocks.

 

Angus and Matt as pleased as punch……so far anyway?

Tight Lines to everyone, The SIWG TEAM.

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.