A’an surveys 2018

The River A’an (Avon) is the largest tributary the Spey and is normally a highly significant producer of smolts. It is a diverse and productive river in its own right although it begins as an extremely low nutrient river with its source in the midst of the granite Cairngorms. Upstream of, and in the vicinity of Inchrory Lodge, the water chemisty benefits from several productive tributaries such as the Allt Loin Bheag and the Allt Loin. In and around the confluences of these tributaries localised pockets of higher fish productivity can be found.

In 2016 the juvenile stock was low, the fry year class of that year in particular was almost missing, this due to the effects of Storm Frank and subsequent high flows. Given the importance of the A’an we repeated some, or all, of the timed surveys in 2017 and 2018.

The blog provides an update on our findings in 2018.

In the A’an, from about site TA43, which is just below Tomintoul, upstream, the presence of multiple year classes of parr becomes a prominent feature of the salmon population.

These results were encouraging, the A’an can be expected to be producing good smolt numbers again from next year. The Fishery Board is also seeking to introduce enhanced predation control measures in tributaries such as the A’an, which will only help.

A few more points of interest noted.

As requested here is the Avon mainstem table as shown above but this time with all the figures.