January 2001

Fishing the Annan

Environmental managers Quarterly report June 2000

Fencing

The 1999 – 2000 fencing programme cost slightly more than was expected so two sections of this Capelgill on the Moffat water and Woodfoot on the main stem were delayed until this year. These sections are now completed. The rest of the programme for 2000 – 2001 is still being finalised. It is envisaged that the fencing will continue down the Annan Water, onto parts of the Lower Evan Water and small mainstem tributaries in the three waters meet areas. There are some large areas that need some form of bank and bed stabilisation carried out before the fencing can commence. This need to be fully costed before the final plans can be completed. Copies of the maps will be sent to all relevant parties as soon as they are ready.

Bankside willow planting

As reported in the last report a large-scale willow-planting programme was completed this year to reduce bankside erosion on the Moffat Water and the Annan Water. This would appear to have been successful with well over 95% of the willow rooted and flourishing.  A small amount (less than 5m) has been washed out this spring however the rest appears to be intact. It is envisaged that this type of work will prove to be very useful on many parts of the river.

Willow planting at Crofthead on the Moffat Water. The photo on the left was taken in March 2000 just after planting and the photo on the right was taken this June. The willow is now firmly rooted and should provide a screen to reduce further erosion.

Here the willow has been pushed into the toe of the bank instead of straight into the bank itself. This has worked extremely well with material falling from above and being trapped behind the willow screen. When conditions allow it this would be the most suitable form of planting. If there is deep water at the toe, this method could not be used.

As this method has been very successful on a small scale, this winter if permission is granted from the landowners an attempt will be made to replicate this on parts of the Annan around Lockerbie. The river here is particularly volatile due in the main to poorly thought out drainage practices. It is a popular and easily accessible fishing area and although primarily a producer of juvenile salmonids there are a lot of holding areas for mature fish. The trout fishing in particular would benefit from an increase in bankside structure.

The Annan at the Royal Four Towns, Lockerbie. This section has been dredged and seriously degraded over the last half century. Re-establishing vegetation along its banks will improve the holding features for fish, particularly trout.

Obstructions

The new legislation regarding obstructions ensures that there is no reason why some structures on the Annan can not be removed or have working fish passes installed on them. Two weirs on the Milk are prime examples where a large boost to the Annans salmon population can be achieved simply by removing the structures or making sure that they are passable. Negotiations will be taking place with the owners of these two weirs with an aim of having them removed or otherwise made passable this summer. Electrofishing upstream of these structures shows that salmon are present but only at low levels.

Weirs on the Milk. The weir on the left is barely ½ mile up from the confluence with Annan and the one on the right is situated under the M74. Previous attempts have been made to make these obstructions passable but there has only been limited success. The removal of these weirs would have a noticeable effect on the River Annan salmon population.

Talks have been re-started with Lanarkshire Council Structures Dept. regarding the culvert on the Evan water near Tinny bank. Successive years of electrofishing have found poor densities of salmon above this culvert and as there is a large area of excellent salmon habitat to be found upstream it is important that this matter is resolved quickly. Opening up this area to salmon will have a very significant effect on the Annan salmon population. 

Education

In conjunction with the Solway partnership a leaflet is being produced which will deal simply with the subject of which fish should be returned by responsible Anglers and which ones it is exceptable to keep. The idea is not to be jingoistic and state methods that should be used but to try to reduce the number of coloured fish that are killed. On the Annan, it should be possible to ensure that every angler who purchases a day ticket or season ticket will be issued with one of these. The entire initial cost will be met by the Solway Partnership. As soon as the first leaflets are produced, all relevant parties will receive them. The pictures to append to the text are those by Robin Aide courtesy of the Atlantic salmon trust.

An open day will be held on Sunday the 20^th of August for all interested parties to attend. This will be widely publicised so hopefully there will be a good turn out. A copy of the poster is in appendix 1.

This years salmon in the classroom project has been completed successfully with a field trip to the river and a chance for the pupils of Kettleholm Primary to catch some fish and investigate the areas that young salmon and trout live in. A short flier has been produced and will be sent round the local schools explaining the project and how they can get involved. The details of this are in appendix 2

Employment of an assistant

The fisheries board employed an assistant who started on July 3^rd. Unfortunately the person was not suitable for the post and has been replaced. The new employee will start on the 7^th of August. This has put us behind with the instream works but is unavoidable.

The previous assistant did complete a comprehensive survey of the Mien Catchment before she left that lists all the visible points of pollution. This will be useful in the future.

The new assistant will start immediately on the annual electrofishing programme and will also be involved in some instream works. As her 6-month period will take beyond January, she will be very useful in assisting in willow planting.

Ae Landfill site

An application has been made by Oakbank services to operate a landfill site near a burn that discharges into the Water of Ae. The DSFB has put in some objections, which are listed in Appendix 3. Other concerns which have not yet been submitted but that have recently come to light is the potential of large increases in the parasite and predation levels in the Ae due to the increase in gulls that are associated with landfill sites. Eyefluke in particular could become a problem as part of the eye flukes lifecycle is in piscivorous birds. Eyefluke is a parasite that lives in the eyes of fish and eventually makes them blind. It is not commonly seen in the wild, probably as it will very quickly put any fish that have it at a severe disadvantage and they are likely to succumb to predation quickly.

Hopefully this and other concerns will cause the planners and SEPA to think carefully about the positioning of this landfill and at the very least insist on a full Environmental Impact Assessment being carried out before any decision is made.

Pollution

A list of pollution events since the last report has been supplied by SEPA and is attached in appendix 4. In general it has been pretty quite with few incidents reported to the environmental manager or SEPA.

No progress has been made in the installation of any monitoring equipment in the Mien and it is probably to late now to have any effect. The environmental manager has been regularly checking the watercourses for signs of pollution but so far has drawn a complete blank.

Bailiffing

Shaun Ottwell has been employed as a part time water Bailiff. To ensure that he is competent in his work Jim Henderson is assisting in his training. He will be spending about seven days over the period of this year working with the Nith bailiffs. When Linda Irvine receives her Warrant card, she will also spend some time on the Nith.

There has been a small increase in poaching activity this year with reliable reports of a known poacher working the river. There has also been an increase in the number of rod and line visiting poachers, particularly on Sundays with a number of ‘trout anglers’ being thrown of the water this year already.

Shortly the environment agency will be taking to court a number of people who were arrested in the Annan DSFBs area of the Solway. The new border rivers order is being implemented so that these people can be tried under the English system despite being arrested in Scotland. The first case is against an Annan man who holds an English drift net licence but was using it near the Chirex out fall pipe. He has pleaded not guilty and the trial will start at Carlisle County court on July 7^th. This will be a useful test of the new legislation. The Annan water bailiffs have all been asked to attend the trial so that they can see how the new legislation is applied.

Several English Haaf Netters have also been arrested fishing in Scotland near the Redkirk Point area. They will also be tried in England using the provisions in the Border Rivers Order. The intention this year will be to pass anyone arrested in the Inner Solway by Annan bailiffs over to the Environment Agency for prosecution in England as their courts appear to take a stricter line than the local Fiscals service.

Escapee Farmed Fish

A large number of rainbow trout have appeared in the Annan mainly between Moffat and Johnstone Bridge. These are due to an accidental escape of 3,500 fish from a local Fish Farm. The source of the escape was found by the farm owner and sealed up. To ensure that this is unlikely to happen again a secondary Screen is going to be built in the outlet channel of the farm. Large numbers of escaped fish can cause severe problems for the river by increasing the amount of competition with the native fish and direct predation. As the escape was in the middle of the smolt run it was felt that any measures taken to remove the fish could have caused significant damage to the wild stock. It is now logistically impossible to remove the fish as they have spread over such a large area.

The latest news on these fish is that they have grown considerably and many of them are close to 1lb in weight. It is to be hoped that they disappear this winter and that the problem does not become a regular occurrence.

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