On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 at 12:58:34 in uk.rec.fishing.game suspicious minds
wrote:

"W. D. Grey" wrote in message
...
In article , Derek Moody
writes
In article , W. D. Grey
wrote:

This matter has been a bone of contention for years. The fish pas was
too violent for salmon to even try to ascend - they have been seen

Is there a counter on the river?

Cheerio,

Don't think so - it was the failure to accurately monitor fish migration
that cocked up the study. The study took place after the fish-pass cills
where modified to make the torrent less violent.

Nogood Boyo will have the answer if he reads this.

As far as I am aware here is no fish counter, fish were trapped or seine
netted and tagged with combined acoustic and radio tags then tracked by a
combination of sonar bouys and radio trackers.

Hmmm... someone who knows his stuff...

There is no counter. Apparently traditional counters don't work well in
salt water. And the barrage location means that all sorts of things
pass by...

There were tagging and tracking studies as described (before and after
construction) to monitor migration. They showed that fish weren't using
the pass and didn't like going over the top either (when it was topped
by the tide). But they were never able to tag as many fish as they
wanted to for a convincing study and some wondered whether a fish that
had a cigar sized tag shoved inside it would behave normally anyway...

There was also a later attempt to use other electronic gadgets and video
but they don't seem to have been successful.

Some mods were made to the fish pass but by then funds for proper
monitoring had petered out.

At the moment most of those who fished for sewin before the construction
are convinced the sewin runs have gone. Some people say they are
catching the odd sewin but sceptics doubt a lot of the reports (and
suspect confusion with large stockies and salmon) because of the
unlikely-sounding sizes and timings.

All I know is that before the barrage anglers queued to fish through the
pools at night and fish could be seen / heard splashing all over the
place. That doesn't happen any more. So as I said, "Basically it's
completely ****ed the runs of sea trout". :-(

--
Nogood Boyo