Monday 11 July 2011

Classic

Saw this in the outdoor shop window on the way home. Brilliant!


Saturday 9 July 2011

An early Start to safety boat for a Quadrathalon, first swimmers set off at 6am, and it couldn't have been a more perfect morning.


















Thursday 7 July 2011

Here we go again

Text taken from the BBC website.

Rafting row over River Tay salmon fishing

Salmon fisherman in Perthshire have said that "relentless" commercial rafting is destroying once lucrative fishing beats.

Rafting companies using the Upper Tay are making the river a "highway", many fisherman claim.

But one operator said they restricted rafting days and were sensitive to the presence of fisherman.

A by-law proposal to restrict rafting in the area has recently been rejected by Perth and Kinross councillors.

The sport has become increasingly popular since the 2003 Land Reform Act opened up access.

Les Dargie, who said he had fished the six-mile stretch between Aberfeldy and Grandtully for a number of years, said many fisherman were now going elsewhere.

'Staying away'

He told BBC Scotland: "There's no question at all that the fishing is affected adversely by this relentless commercial pressure on the resource.

"If you come to fish you'll find that quite often if a lot of rafts have been through you won't catch fish.

"The result is that people tend to say away - people like me who could be paying into the local economy."

There are five rafting companies currently operating on the Upper Tay, catering for families and school trips as well as hen and stag parties.

Freespirits owner and river guide Steve Thomas, who has worked on the Tay for 20 years, said he sympathised with the fisherman, but did not accept that the boats were a nuisance.

"We do play about on the river, people do like to jump in the river," he said.

"[But] we don't do it in sensitive areas and we don't do it in fishing pools. If we see a fisherman all the messing about stops... That's what should be happening."

Mr Thomas said his company restricted rafting on Tuesdays, Thursdays and often on Saturdays.

'Equally important'

But he added: "Effectively what's happened in the last two years, the fisherman are asking us to stay off the river for three consecutive days - Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - and it's just something that we can't work with."

Last month, Fish Legal - a body operating on behalf of the Salmon Fisheries Board - asked Perth and Kinross Council to introduce a by-law that would set aside three consecutive days for fishing.

The request was turned down on the grounds it was unenforceable, but the council's community safety convener Willie Robertson rejected suggestions that the council had failed to take into account fisherman's interests.

"Both are equally important to the area," he said.

"If we can do anything to help both parties I hope we can do that."

2 days on the Spey

Just back from a 2 day trip on the river Spey. We accessed at Broomhill Bridge and paddled the 30ish miles down to the egress at Aberlour. The first day was fairly low, and as we settled down for the night in our hammocks the evening sun was shining, and a couple of beers were had, ready for the long second day. However after heavy rain over in the West the river had risen a foot and a half, which made the rest of the trip pretty quick.