This week we’ve been up at Alladale Wilderness Reserve doing some work for the Government’s “National Electrofishing Programme for Scotland” (NEPS). This programme has designated 30 randomly selected sites to each fishery board across their catchments, with the overall aim of assessing the status of juvenile salmon at a catchment level. As these sites are randomly selected they are not in areas we would usually fish, so getting to them and fishing them has been a bit of a challenge!
Glen More had salmon present, and today’s site on the Alladale river had a few trout, despite not being great habitat. Marine Scotland are going to produce a review of the project in March, if it appears to work well then there’s a possibility that this may feed into the designation of the conservation limits alongside the rod catches. However, this wouldn’t happen until a few years down the line to work out any kinks.
More information on this sampling programme can be found here; Gov.scot sampling programme
Sean Robertson – Science & Mitigation Officer