Fish Eye View at Catrine

To enable us to compare performance before and after the modifications at Catrine Dam, I filmed a Salmon’s eye view of the issues around the fish pass and Anderson’s. The video illustrates the turbulence and entrained air that make passage difficult.

Anderson’s will be deepened below the fall soon and this should allow migrating species to take of from closer to the falls. Currently there isn’t much more than 1meter depth and that’s not ideal for leaping. The fish pass was interesting and as suspected, entrained air fills the chambers throughout the water column making it difficult for fish to develop power for swimming and leaping. A few boulders and smaller sediments can be seen near the upper end of the pass, carried in during spates.

Once the flow is reduced to 0.5 cubic meters per second, I’ll reshoot this film to see how things look, and again after the works to Anderson’s are complete.

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I’ve just heard that Catrine Community Trust has been granted planning permission subject to several advisory notes. These include developing provisions should otters be encountered during the works and that the item for digging out the middle pool is no longer pursued. I doubt that either of these should prevent progress so we can all look forwards to the planned improvements going ahead in the immediate future. This is good news for the migratory fish on the River Ayr and we are keen to see the results.