There were a few days of hard frost at the beginning of this month, and the Willowgate Fishery was still iced over from late December.
But with a shift in the weather (turning a bit milder) it gave the staff a chance to get out in the boat and make a start on breaking up the surface ice. This process was repeated over a few days and gradually more of the water became freed up and open to the fishers, who have come back in good numbers to enjoy some very good fishing.
After the big tides at the start of the month were past, we spent a couple of days on the south side of the river at Mary fishing station clearing up the old net green and banking. All drift wood was cut up and removed, the litter from the tide line was all picked up, and then the tractor and topper went over the net green, cutting it back short to give the early wild flowers a chance.
Down at Newburgh, the job of reinstating the slipway at the front of the old boatyard took a step nearer to completion, with the smaller tides allowing us to do more shuttering and getting two more sections of concrete completed.
There was excitement on the river on the 12th, when we had the pleasure of watching a dolphin swimming up past the Willowgate Fishery and continuing up river towards Perth. It is very unusual for a dolphin to be seen so far up the river system, and many of the fishers and customers from the café were out onto the river bank to witness this very rare occurrence.
On the 15th I had a change of scenery when I spent the afternoon at Our Lady’s Primary School, where for the second year running, I was asked to come in and do a talk for the primary four classes who are currently doing “rivers” as their topic. They were an enthusiastic group who were very keen to learn about the subject, and showed great interest in the river Tay and its wildlife.
On the 17th we had a BBC film crew from Country Tracks come down to the Willowgate Fishery, they were filming what has been done on the river over the last few years, this was a follow- up to the filming for “Landward” in 2006.
Hopefully it will be on television in the next couple of months.
There was another busy day at the Fishery on the 28th when we held an open day. There were fly-casting and fly-tying demonstrations, by special guests Andy Murray, Jim Fearn, Ian Gordon and Scott Mackenzie.
The start of the day was a bit windy, but there was a good turn out and it was good to see a mix of all ages enjoying the day.
There has been some movement of birds this month on the estuary, with the last of the whooper swans moving on. We have also had the arrival of our first (solitary) swallow on the 23rd, and our first curlew was seen on the 10th. We were seeing skylarks before the end of the month and had a rare sighting of a magpie in our area on the 29th. The clock change saw the start of summer time, but there was a wintery feel to the end of the month with the return of more sleet and gales.
