During the first two weeks of June a group from the University of Glasgow expedition society completed some habitat surveys of the Northern Lomond tributary (River Falloch) and the west-hand side of Loch Lomond looking to identify any potential burns that could support salmon populations or any impediments to fish migration. Following this, from the areas they identified, we took them back out to electrofish.
We found a couple of burns in the Falloch containing populations of salmon, though their access in the burns seems to be limited given a number of partial barriers to migration. The most common barrier being the A82 road bridges.
Following this work, we undertook a number of short surveys on the River Leven. Given the size, depth and flow of the River Leven these surveys are restricted to fishing the edges or the river which is predominantly fry habitat. We found only a few trout fry alongside many salmon fry and flounder and a stoneloach.
There were also a number of small eels, many of which escaped through the whole in the nets. We covered a number of spots on the rivers mainstem starting by stuckie bridge and completing our final survey by the pigeon huts.
The trust also made the most of the warm and dry weather in June by fishing three sites on the mainstem of the River Falloch, which is an area we previously knew very little about. It is usually quite difficult to survey given the fast-flowing waters and usually wet weather around the time surveys are carried out.
In all the sites fished we found both salmon fry and parr showing that spawning is occurring in the mainstem, and the numbers seem promising. We are hoping to continue this monitoring of the lochs most northernly tributary.
We have also kicked off our continuing participation in the National Electrofishing Programme for Scotland (NEPS) with a site on the Endrick water. It was a very busy site with plenty of salmon fry and couple of salmon parr. There were also over 600+ stoneloach and 200+ minnows.
Unfortunately, like many trusts across Scotland, we have not been able to complete more surveys given the extremely warm temperatures we have experienced across the latter stages of July.
The safe limits to survey for salmon and trout are 18°C as the warm temperatures plus electrofishing can stress the fish out. Hopefully some cooler august temperatures will enable us to complete our allocated NEPS survey sites as well as our annual monitoring sites.
