Stock Improvement

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.