Galloway Country Fair 2014

River Nith Team at the Galloway Country Fair 2014

For the fourth year running the Nith District Salmon Fishery Board and Nith Catchment Fishery Trust attended Galloway Country Fair and whilst it wasn’t as wet as it has been in previous years we did get a few rain showers.  It was a great opportunity to speak to anglers and non-anglers about what we are doing on the river and for us to try to answer some of the more difficult questions such as “Where are all the salmon?”  We had a lovely display tank full of brown trout, trout fry and parr and the odd salmon parr but the star of the show was the large eel who decided that tank life was not for him and made a bid for freedom!  Thankfully we caught him in time and he spent the rest of the show resting peacefully on the bottom of the tank.  These fish had all been caught in a 6m by 4m section of the Marr Burn and demonstrated the abundance and diversity of the fish in that burn.

This year we ran two casting competitions; an individual trout fly accuracy competition and a family accuracy competition.  Conditions were easier on the Saturday as winds picked up on Sunday making casting extremely difficult.  The winners were:

Mike Taylor – 1st prize Individual Trout Fly

Daniel Heindrich – 1st prize Individual Trout Fly and Top Junior

Kenneth Annand – 2nd prize Individual Trout Fly

Adam Rogers – 2nd prize Individual Trout Fly

Jack Bishop – Top junior Individual Trout Fly

Lind family – 1st prize Family Accuracy

Parke family – 1st prize Family Accuracy

Ingham family – 2nd prize Family Accuracy

Duncan family – 2nd prize Family Accuracy

 Borderlines shared a stand with us and carried out casting demonstrations in the main ring and on the small loch beside our stand.  Surprisingly during the casting demonstration on Saturday morning an enormous salmon was hooked and successfully “landed”!  Who let Chris into the fancy dress box?