A 5 year old River Clyde lady ...
(excerpt from UCAPA)
The Clyde Grayling season is now well underway, with rain forecast this weekend the river should get topped up nicely.
For the last 3 years we have been running a scale sampling project throughout the fishery to gather information which we hope will help us make more informed fishery management decisions and to bolster our fishery records.Scale sampling is relatively non invasive, the angler can easily remove a couple of sample scales from the fish near the dorsal fin without too much distress to the fish.
These scales can then be read by an experienced scale reader like reading the rings on a tree.
Grayling scales are a distinctive scallop form, the rings on the scale can identify the age of the fish, how many times it has spawned and which years it has spawned.
For example, a large specimen Grayling caught by UCAPA angler David Reid was sampled in January 2018.
David did not have scales with him but he did have a measuring tape. David removed a couple of scales and measured the fish from the tip of the nose to the fork of the tail.
The Grayling measured 520 mm long, according to the Tweed foundation weight/length chart the Grayling should have weighed around 3lbs 4oz to 3lbs 6oz. The scale sample showed that the fish was 5 years plus old.
The fish had spawned in years 3, 4 and 5.
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