As we come to the end of another year, I have once again been focusing on stripping salmon to fill our hatchery.
We were faced with several challenges this year as a very dry summer has likely decreased the Blackwater run of salmon, though the Conon shows good numbers of salmon going through the fish counter.
We started stripping in the second week of November, and although the fish trap wasn’t heaving with fish, we still managed to trap hundreds of fish, which get kept in large tanks in the stripping shed. I once again had great fun jumping in the trap and hoicking fish out.
The fish trap after a big storm. There was a busy night for the bailiffs who had to fish the trap in the dark. We then spent the day in freezing conditions stripping as many fish as possible to get eggs to the hatchery in a big power cut, so were laying out eggs by torch light. This was also the day that RAFTS apprentice Fiona had come to visit! I am sure she had an exciting but cold day, as we taught her how to pick up and strip fish!
I was also helping Tim and Darryl from the University of Glasgow with their projects, this involved assisting them in taking various samples: eggs, milt, scales, fin clips and embryos. Darryl’s experiment involved crossing different sized hen fish, salmon and grilse, with precocious parr, one sea winter cocks and multi-sea winter cocks. The size difference between the fish was incredible. 
