On Tuesday 28 November the River Forth Fisheries Trust provided a workshop on redds surveying led by Trust Ecologist Tommy McDermott. Tommy, along with Jonathan and Sylvian delivered the workshop to 10 volunteers, including members from Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park, the Allan Water Committee and members from RFFT.
From Callander on a cold and clear morning, we started along the River Teith and Eas Gobhain to monitor three locations within half a mile. It did not take long to find a redd, where we discussed how to identify flow types in the river where nests are more likely, and how to determine the location of a nest within the flow once it has been found. Nest depth, redd size and substrate preferences can all vary among species, so this also helps us to monitor habits of some of the diverse wildlife within our Forth catchment.
After recording the find in our survey forms, we moved up the Garbh Uisge near Loch Lubnaig and surveyed an additional location. The treat of the day was finding a redd nest where some salmon males were chasing each other around the area, vying for dominance. It was an important lesson to the volunteers not only to know where and how to look for redds, but also to know what to look for (follow the fish)! After the workshop volunteers were assigned their own sections of river for redd counting and will report findings back to RFFT, where the data will be used to help us assess numbers of spawners and try to forecast fish populations for future years.
