THE DON AND DISTRICT SALMON FISHERY BOARD
SUPERINTENDENTS REPORT FOR AGM 2009
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen
In the early part of 2009, a total of 500,500 young Salmon, Sea trout and Brown trout were stocked out into the system, from the Don hatchery at Strathdon. A break down of this figure consisted of 422,500 Salmon, 24,000 Sea trout and 54,000 Brown trout. The Sea trout figure was well below the previous year of 58,000, which reflects the poor year of 2007 for sea trout returning to the system.
The stocking out of salmon eyed ova commenced in the month of January. The eggs were planted out into artificial Redds on selected sites. The sites chosen were not accessible to Salmon due to impassable obstructions such as the Delnadamph weir, and areas which had natural obstructions on them caused by flooding. Earlier Redd counts carried out by the board staff showed a number of spawning areas from Cock Bridge down to the Candacraig waters, which were lacking in spawning activity, this information gave us plenty of scope for planting out this years stock.
We only managed to get half of the salmon stock out as eyed ova, due to heavy snow fall on the Don catchment, which meant that the remainder of the stock were planted out as unfed fry in May. The Sea trout and Brown trout were planted out during April into the main stem of the river and nursery streams in the upper catchment.
A further break down of the stock used in the hatchery for 2008 consisted of 28 spring fish, 15 salmon, 10 Grilse, 1 previously spawned salmon, this information came from scale readings taken from hen fish at the hatchery.
Salmon and Trout in the Classroom
It has been another successful year for this project. 2 Primary schools took part, Keig and Tullynessle. Once the young salmon had hatched in their aquariums and had just about used up all their yolk sack, we took the children down to the nearest stream where they were released.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Castle Forbes for letting the children from Keig School go through the estate grounds to release the young salmon.
The Inverurie Angling Association did brown trout in the class room with Kemnay secondary school last year, and this year they carried out the same project in Inverurie secondary. It was very successful and got excellent press coverage from 3 local news papers.
I would just like to thank Mr Peter Dow and the members of the Inverurie Angling Association for the donation they made to the hatchery fund this year.
Don Trust
During the second half of the year myself and the bailiffs have been assisting the Don trust in some of their projects such as, electro fishing surveys, field survey work and genetic sampling of salmon Parr.
The Genetic sampling was very interesting, 50-60 salmon Parr were caught at each of the 6 sites chosen within the catchment, they were then anesthetized and a small part of the adipose fin was clipped and put into a small test tube, which would then be sent down to FRS at Pitlochry. The sites chosen were, Nochty Burn, Cushnie Burn which is a tributary of the Leochel burn at Alford, Burnhervie Burn at Inverurie, one upper section of the Urie at Shevock Junction, and one section on the main river at Kintore.
All sites chosen had excellent densities of salmon and young trout. Kintore was to me a fascinating site, we electro fished a very small area just in front of the golf club about 30meters square, that part of the river is very shallow and anglers cross over from one bank to the other, and it has a thick covering of weed on top of the gravel. In amongst the weed we found 7 different species of fish; Stone loach, Gudgen, Salmon, Trout, Eel, Lamprey, and Minnow and the amount of feed coming of the weed was incredible, we even had to continually clean our hand nets as they were covered in fresh water shrimp, now we know why the Don trout are so big.
I will not speak long on the Trust work as I know the Trust will be speaking once I finish.
Moving on in the year to September, where there was a large flood and the river reached a height of 7ft. The power of this water moved large amounts of gravel on the Strathdon waters almost blocking the fish pass on the Newe weir. The gravel was only 1½ feet away from the top of the pass. Any fish moving through the top of the pass would have beached themselves on an island of gravel.
After speaking to SEPA about gravel extraction to clear the pass, Mr John Riley a proprietor on that part of the river offered to do the Job and clear the Dam of gravel, to allow better access for fish as they moved through the Dam to continue on their migration upstream.
I will also take this opportunity to thank Mr Riley on behalf of the Board for acting so quickly on this matter.
Angling
The angling effort for salmon this year has been very much on the low side to say the least; the only months that have seen any increase were in the last two weeks of February when 15 spring fish were landed for that month. In September, excellent angling effort from Stoneywood paper mill to the lower Don produced in excess of over a 100 salmon landed for the month, the good catches continued into the first three weeks of October until the big flood on the 22nd.
The 6 months between February and September did produce salmon catches but not in any great numbers, whether this was because of the lack of salmon or the lack of angling effort it is very hard to say.
To summarise the spring catches this year we can only go by the returns that have come into the board. It was quite evident that the bulk of the Grilse run and summer salmon were late coming into the system this year, as has been the trend for the past few years. From late august until well into October anglers are still catching fresh sea liced Grilse, which is very strange indeed. The Sea trout and Brown trout fishing has been excellent this year, with a lot of specimen brown trout caught up and down the river system, the sea trout has shown a vast improvement from the previous year of 2008.
A lot of anglers I have spoken to over the season have said to me that there are very few rivers left in Scotland which has excellent wild brown trout of the size and quality that there is on the Don. “So why fish for salmon when you can get great sport not just from brown trout but also sea trout”.
Just now we are very busy at the hatchery catching brood stock. I did have well over 60 fish in the impoundment in the burn, but due to the big flood this month I had to release those all back to the river for their own safety. We started catching again once the flood water receded. Also during the big flood three mature trees came floating down the river and have landed and stuck at the top of the fish pass at the Newe, once the river drops to a safe working height these trees will be sawn up and removed.
Jim Kerr
River Don Superindendent
THE DON AND DISTRICT SALMON FISHERY BOARD
MONTHLY REPORT FOR JUNE 2009
State of River
From the 1st to the 10th of the month the river level was holding at 1ft above summer flow. From the 10th onwards due to continuous showers of rain the river level was very unsettled, although levels did not exceed above the 2ft mark. From the 26th of the month the river level started to settle to 1ft above summer level once again, this level continued until the end of June. The graph below shows river levels during the month.
Fish in River
During the middle of June salmon were moving through the Strathdon waters, one Guest on the Semiel fishing’s landed two salmon and lost two. Further down stream at Ardhuncart 9 fresh run salmon were landed for the month. On the Alford waters of Haughton small numbers of salmon were landed and returned. On the Castle Forbes fishing’s 1 salmon was landed. On the middle to lower Don the majority of anglers have been concentrating their efforts on the Sea trout and Brown trout. There were small runs of early Grilse running the river in the early part of June and these were landed on the ADAA waters and the Aberdeenshire council waters of Inverurie and Kintore. The Sea trout fishing this year has shown a vast improvement on the previous two years, the majority of catches have been from Kemnay down to the tidal reaches of the system as the fishing effort above Kemnay has still been on the poor side, but most beats from Kemnay down to the lower reaches of the river are well into double figures for Sea trout catches. The largest sea trout caught that I am aware of was caught at Ardmurdo at Inverurie and weighed 5¾lb. The brown trout angling has still been very good through out the river system with some very large specimen trout landed in the 5-6lb range, but the majority of trout landed have been in the 1-3lb class.
Coastal Fishing’s
All nets slapped for month.
Invasive Species Giant Hogweed
The bailiff staff passed the exams needed to acquire the two certificates, PA1 and PA6W for the eradication treatment of Giant hogweed in 2010.
Salmon in the Class Room
The schools that were involved this year will be taken out into the nearby streams in September where they will be doing kick sampling to look at the aquatic life in a stream. This gives the children an insight into what the young salmon and trout feed on once they were returned to the stream. We will also do some electro fishing to show them all the different fish life that lives in a healthy river system.
Jim Kerr
River Superintendent
DON AND DISTRICT SALMON FISHERY BOARD
APRIL MONTHLY REPORT 2009
State of River
April has been a month of low river flows compared with April of 2008, when river levels were 2 to 3 feet above normal flows due to melting snow and persistent rain fall. Levels this April have struggled, from the start of the month, with the river level only one foot above summer flow. On the 9th of the month there was an increase in flow by 1 foot, but this level decreased very rapidly. The river flow from the 13th of the month right through to the end of April was bordering on summer flow low levels, which is unusual for April as it is normally a wet month. River levels for the past 28 days of April are shown on the Graph below.
Fish in River
Very few salmon were landed throughout the river during the month. On the Castle Forbes waters at Alford, the first of their fishing guests of the season managed to land 6 salmon. On the Monymusk waters a brown trout angler fishing a gold head nymph and 4lb nylon hooked a 10lb salmon which took him 40 minutes to land. In the fishing return book in the hotel it reads “amazing day fish swam away nicely”, the same angler also had 3 brown trout largest being 3½lb. Manar fishing’s had 2 salmon for the month and Inverurie had 1 salmon. On the last week of the month on the ADAA waters the upper Parkhill beat landed 8 salmon, Stoneywood mill fishing’s had 1 fish and Grandhome fishing’s had 3 salmon. It was quite noticeable that a lot of the regular salmon anglers on the river were not casting a line for the salmon this month, as the brown trout fishing has been so good and this is where a lot of attention has been made by Don Anglers this month.
On the sea trout side one or two beats have now started to land some sea trout, mostly in the last week of April from Parkhill down to the lower river.
The brown trout has been excellent during the month with high numbers of catches. From Kildrummy waters right down the system to the lower end of the river, beats have done well. The Munymusk fishing’s always seem to produce very large trout, one party of 2 trout anglers had an entry in the return book of 6 large trout with weights ranging from 5lb down to 3lb and many smaller fish and they were only there for the day. There were a lot more entries of trout in the book for the month and many in the 3-4lb range. One or two anglers on the ADAA waters at Kemnay have also done well with the trout again in the 2-3 lb class. At Inverurie and Kintore during the first and second week of the month decent numbers of brown trout were being caught, which were of good size. I had one angler showing me photos of his trout catches on his phone.
When you move down to Fintry upper and lower Parkhill beats of the ADAA fishing, there have been a very large amount of wild trout caught and some very large ones amongst them, from 5½ maybe 6lb down to your average 1-2lb class fish. It seems that there must be terrific feed for the trout in the river and cover from predatory birds with the weed growth that is prominent from Alford down to the tidal reaches of the Don making the Don a first class trout river.
Salmon in the Classroom
The salmon that the schools had in the classroom are now at the hatchery and these will be released by the school children next month, all the salmon are progressing well at this time.
Hatchery
A total of 54,000 brown trout and 21,000 sea trout have now all been planted out into the upper catchment this month. A full mapping report will be submitted in my next report. In the 1st picture below Stephen is seen releasing the brown trout into the main river at Strathdon, in the 2nd picture you can see the small fry swimming out of the sieve and the last picture shows bucket of healthy sized brown trout fry. All the salmon within the hatchery are progressing well at this time and if the temperature holds will be ready to be planted out next month.
 
Stephen releasing the fry
Bucket with Fry
DON AND DISTRICT SALMON FISHERY BOARD
State of River
MARCH REPORT 2009
River levels during March have been more settled than in the previous month. The river level has been holding between 1½ to 1 feet above normal base line levels for most of the month.
Overnight rain on the 28th of the month caused the river height to increase from 1½ to 2½ft. On the 30th the river level fell back to 1½ft, increasing again to a level of 2½ft on the last day of the month. The graph below shows the river levels for the month of March.
Fish in River
The angling effort for March was very poor throughout the Don system, which affects the catch returns for spring salmon being caught on the river for the month.
For some of the anglers that did venture out onto the river they managed to land spring salmon. Grandhome fishing’s had 4 fish for the month, 2 of these fish were taken by guests who landed two very nice 7lb fish. The Stoneywood paper mill water on the lower river also landed 1 spring fish of 7-8lb. On the ADAA waters of Parkhill 4 fish were caught for the month. Moving up river the Aberdeenshire council fishing’s of Kintore managed to grass two fresh salmon, Ardmurdo fishing’s at Inverurie also had two spring salmon of 7lb and the other one was measured at 38 inches in length and estimated weight to be 21lb and was covered in sea lice, the angler floy tagged both fish and then released them, the same angler also landed a large sea trout of 28 inches which was also released.
On the Inverurie fishing’s lots of Kelts were been landed but nothing fresh reported. From Monymusk up to Alford waters there has been very little angling activity to achieve catch returns for the month. On the Towie water at Glenkindie where Ballater angling club have leased this water for a 2nd season, they managed to land their first fish of the season a nice 8lb spring salmon. All the salmon and trout mentioned were released back to the system.
After a meeting that my Senior Bailiff Mr S Murphy had with Alex Macallan who looks after the fishing for Stoneywood paper Mill fishing’s, the mill fishing’s are now catch and release until 1st June and they are going to follow the Don conservation code. This now makes the river 85% catch and release which is fantastic news for the conservation of the Don salmon, but we still can’t be complacent as there is still a lot more we can achieve in protecting the spring stock.
The Brown trout season has now started, last season some very big trout were landed from all over the system and it was great to see anglers releasing their trout for future stock. Already there have been some big trout landed, and the season has just commenced.
On the Monymusk waters two brown trout anglers landed a nice basket of trout, with the largest trout weighing 6½lb, all trout were released. On the Kintore stretch of river one trout angler landed a nice 5½lb trout. It looks like it will be another year for big trout on the Don system. The top of the Don system is still very cold with snow still lying in the Grampian Mountains.
The slow snow melt is keeping the river temperature very cold, which will keep the trout firmly on the bed of the river to feed. Best bet would be the middle stretches down to the lower Don, where the air and river temperature is slightly warmer. Once the month of May comes in, this is the time to move further up river. Good luck to all you trout anglers for the 2009 season.
Salmon in the Classroom
All the salmon eggs have now hatched in both of the primary schools and are progressing very well, during the Easter break I will be taking the eggs back to the hatchery until the schools start once again.
Hatchery
All the hatchery stock salmon and trout have all hatched successfully, I was hoping to get all of the salmon eggs planted out as eyed ova, but this did not work out due to river conditions and weather conditions. The salmon will now be planted out as unfed fry in late April possibly May.
Health and Safety
On the 23rd of March myself and the two bailiffs attended a First aid appointed person outdoor course, this was a good course to go on not only to learn about first aid for treating ourselves, but also anyone who may be needing assistance on the river bank until professional emergency help arrives. We all received our certificates a few days after the course. And will need to attend a refresher course in three years time.
Safe Use of Pesticides
I have now booked myself and staff in for a course on the safe use of pesticides. This is a two day course and will allow us to deal with Hogweed at a later date once the Hogweed survey is completed.
Jim Kerr
River Superintendent
DON AND DISTRICT SALMON FISHERY BOARD REPORT
FOR DON TRUST FEBRUARY 2009
State of River
For the first half of February the Don system was covered in a blanket of deep snow, and icece flows were moving down steam from the top reaches of the system. The air temperature during night fall dropped to -15c. On the 15th of the month the air temperature increased to 12c causing a huge snow melt, which in turn put the river into full flood conditions, reaching a height of 7ft above normal flows. As the days passed the river slowly started to drop back in height, by the end of February the river was still running high at 2ft above normal base level. The Graph below showing the river levels for February.
Fish in River
The start of the salmon angling season commenced on Wednesday11th of February. There were very few rods on the river due to the winter conditions. On that day the bailiffs only counted 7 anglers from the lower Don up to Alford waters, which was very poor angling effort and only salmon Kelts were landed and returned. The first spring salmon of 6lb was landed on the 12th on the Aberdeenshire council waters at Inverurie. The opening march to the river at Inverurie was held on Saturday the 13th, there was a good turn out for the event, with local anglers and their children, members of the Don trust, Mr Alistair Wallace chairman of the DDSFB. Retired Councillor Mr Raymond Bisset said a few nice words and a poem before handing over to the local minister, where the river was then blessed with some good malt whisky
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On Monday the 16th of the month a warm front moved over the north east which brought on a large snow melt in the Don catchment putting the river into full flood conditions. By the 19th of the month anglers started to go back on the river even though the river was still running hard at 3ft above normal flows, reports were slowly coming of the beats about spring salmon catches up and down the system. By the 28th of the month 15 spring salmon had been landed and returned to the system. The beats that have been successful are Grandhome fishing’s with 4 fish, Stoneywood mill fishing’s 1, ADAA upper Parkhill 1, Kintore council fishing’s 2, Inverurie 3, Manar fishing’s 1, ADAA fishing’s Kemnay 1, Place of Tillyfourie 1, Alford council fishing’s 1. |
DON AND DISTRICT SALMON FISHERY BOARD
The river is still running
March Prospects
The river is still running high, but I think once the river temperature starts to increase during March more spring salmon will be landed up and down the river. Looking at the tides for the coming month, from the 10th of March to the 15th March there are large spring tides of 4 to 4.3Meters and again from the 26th of the month to the end of March, 4 meter tides are expected which will push spring fish into the system.
Salmon in the Class Room
The Salmon in the classroom has now started again with salmon eggs being introduced into two Primary schools, Tullynessle Primary and Keig Primary school. Since putting the eggs into the schools aquariums, one of the schools salmon has now started to hatch and is progressing very well.
Hatchery
All stock are progressing well at this time, in March we will attempt to plant some of the salmon eggs out into the upper system once the river levels stabilise. If this is not possible they will be put out as unfed fry into the system.
The Brown trout are now starting to hatch and are progressing well at this time.
Jim Kerr
River Superintendent
JANUARY MONTHLY REPORT 2009
STATE OF RIVER
The first month of the year has been a cold one with bouts of snow covering the upper Don system, at times Ice flows were moving slowly down the upper half of the system. The river heights during the month have been moderate with very slight increases in levels, on the 13th of the month the river went up 6inchs and on the 23rd the river went up again due to snow melt by 1ft. The river went up again on the 26th and by the end of the month the river was 1ft above normal flows.
FISH IN RIVER
As is normal for this time of year Kelts are plentiful in most pools from Alford to the lower Don. During the second week of January the bailiffs were seeing fresh spring salmon moving through the lower Don at Seaton park coming straight of the tide; these fish were in the 8lb range. This run of spring fish coincides with the biggest tides of the month.
COASTAL FISHING
Closed season
GYRODACTYLUS SALARIS
Gyrodactylus warning signs supplied by ASFB are in the process of being put up in car parks up and down the river system. The signs are to make anglers aware of how important it is to disinfect all their fishing equipment before going on to the river.
SCHOOL PROJECTS
The school projects have now started with Brown trout being introduced to Inverurie Secondary school. In attendance on the day were members of Inverurie Angling Association, who were the sponsors of the equipment for the project, and Iain Morrison from the Don Trust who took a lot of good photos which are on the Trust website. Doctor Sam Martin from the Aberdeen University, who works as a Biologist, gave the children an educational talk on Brown trout. Inverurie Angling Association offered the children free fishing to try to encourage them to try fishing, and told the children that fishing equipment would be supplied to any one who was interested in trying out the sport.
INVASIVE SPECIES
A meeting was held on the 20th of the month with myself, FWAG and Jacobs, who are handling the Aberdeen Westerly peripheral Route affairs (AWPR) where it was debated on the best way to get as much out of the money available to ourselves from the AWPR. Originally we were going to survey the river for hogweed and then spray it, but by doing the whole river we would only get one year out of the money available to us. It was decided the best way forward would be to concentrate on a smaller area from the source of the Hogweed at Strathdon down to Alford Bridge, and instead of getting one years spraying we could in fact get two years spraying, which would make more sense. FWAG will still be doing the survey work on the Urie system and the Board staff will be carrying out the survey work on the main river and all the spraying on the Urie and the Main River. We were told that as the Aberdeen Westerly Peripheral Route is still going through parliament, and if there are more public meetings concerning the new route that it is possible that no money will be available till 2010. I asked them if it would be okay to start my survey this spring and they replied that would be a good idea as it would show AWPR managers how urgent a matter this is to the Don Salmon Fishery.
HATCHERY
During the second week of January the first two troughs of eyed salmon eggs were planted out into the head waters of the river system, we did try to get back into the head waters to get another trough of eggs out but there was to much snow blocking the tracks in the hills. All stock within the hatchery is progressing well at this time.
Jim Kerr
River Superintendent
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