HUNDREDS OF salmon have made part of their spawning run up the River Ericht by road, writes Ken Bell, angling correspondent.

The fish became trapped in the centre of Blairgowrie this week in a large pool below the bridge over the river and staff from the Tay District Salmon Fisheries Board, with the help of local volunteers, were called in to net them.

The bailiffs placed a net downstream of the pool and waded down to it, driving the fish into the net, from which they were transferred to a tank.

“We are putting them into a large oxygenated tank and taking them upstream, well above this obstruction and other more natural obstructions such as Cargill’s Leap,” said board inspector Derek Gregor yesterday.

On Monday the board staff caught and transported around 200 fish and yesterday, with more fish having come into the pool overnight, almost 300 were trapped and moved upstream, with hundreds of Blairgowrie residents watching the activities.

The fish varied from grilse of around 5 lb to large autumn fish in the mid and upper teens.

While most are now in their breeding colours, preparing to spawn on the upriver redds, a large fresh sea-liced fish showed that salmon are still coming into the Tay system from the sea.

Sea-lice are marine parasites which attach themselves to fish and as they only last a day or so in fresh-water any fish carrying them which reaches Blairgowrie must have come up from the estuary fast.

The fish had been trapped further downstream by the low river level but a small rise the Ericht at the weekend saw hundreds race upstream, only to become trapped again below the weir at the Brig o’ Blair as the water level fell again.

With insufficient water coming over the weir, the fish found it impossible to find the fish pass constructed there.

Although a few managed to make it up the weir, many of the fish were damaging themselves as they leaped upstream trying to overcome the obstruction.

The low water has meant fewer salmon than expected have made it through the fish counter above Blairgowrie under their own power this year.

It is understood the figure is just over 7000, to which must now be added the hundreds transported past it by the board staff.

If the river should come up in the next few days it is expected the counter tally will start to rise.

The count at the fish pass at Pitlochry Dam, at around 5500, is above the average for the past few years.