The 2023 season finally came to an end on Tuesday 31st October with the close of the salmon and sea trout season. The final three weeks after the end of the trout season, was pretty much more of the same, with prolonged wet weather and large spates. This brought a lot of fish into the river, often at times when the river was all but unfishable, that said 17 salmon, 1 grilse and 4 sea trout were landed. Ally Crawford put in the hard work and long miles, to land 7 salmon, the best being a cracking fresh fish of about 13lb [see below].

An encouraging improvement over the last couple of years, but still a long way the number of fish caught a few decades ago. Hopefully a few more traditional wet summers alongside some of the proposed improvements, will further improve the condition of the river.

Talking of improvements, the scoping surveys for removal of Dollar Weir has now being completed, and the Forth Rivers Trust begin the difficult task of seeking the approvals of SEPA, Clackmannanshire Council and NatureScot, and raising the funding for the works. The team at the Trust are very experienced having completed a number of similar projects, most recently at Seafield Weir on the West Lothian Almond:

https://forthriverstrust.org/project/seafield-weir-removal/

As part of a separate but related project the Trust are looking at how the step weir on Dollar Burn could be improved:

https://forthriverstrust.org/project/lost-wee-weirs-of-the-forth/

The Trust are currently working on a number of other projects on the Devon to further improve the riparian habitat, which we will share in the Newsletter.

At Glenquey the final count was complete. We sold 338 tickets and we are very grateful for the very good rate of return of catch returns (74%). Numbers were a wee bit down on last year (mostly in March and April, so the weather was the probable cause). A total of 554 fish were caught, the largest being 4lb but the typical weight was 0.5lb

The Annual General Meeting has provisionally been booked for Wednesday 10th January 2024 at 7.30PM . Details will be posted here shortly.