Smolt monitoring in the Teith Catchment

Smolt monitoring in the Teith catchment came to an end yesterday. We think the run of smolts has ended as we have had a week without any catches. The trap was out of action some days too due to high water with the keltie in spate a few days so any remaining smolts most likely left then.

On Sunday though, a 40cm sea trout turned up in the trap most likely trying to make it’s way back into the main stem of the river as water levels dropped back in the Keltie.

Staff will now have a look at the results but as a summary, 187 smolts were caught in the trap. 143 salmon and 44 sea trout. we also caught 4 resident brown trout parr.

Average weight of salmon was 19.8g and average weight of sea trout smolts was 49.5g.

Other parameters were recorded each day such as temperature, water levels and water pH so it will be interesting to interrogate the data further and over time as the data grows from year to year.

Here are a few photos from the past few weeks as a summary.