River fly life surveys allow us to closely monitor the food supply of our resident Trout and Grayling, and also indicate the health of our rivers. In October 2005, 25 anglers from various angling associations within the Tweed system were trained in river fly life collection identification and counting. These anglers now take biannual fly life samples from within a given area of their association waters. The samples are taken to the Tweed Foundation where the anglers use microscopes to identify and count the fly life. The results are given to the Tweed Trout & Grayling Initiative and are used to monitor river fly life and to assess the health of the river.

The picture on the left shows volunteers from Selkirk & District Angling Association taking a fly life sample from the Ettrick Water in May 2006. The sampling method consists of three minutes of “kick sampling” followed by one minute of “stone washing”.

The picture on the right shows anglers using microscopes to identify river fly life during a training day. Although identifying river fly life to individual species is very difficult and sometimes requires powerful microscopes volunteers can be easily shown how to separate river flies into their major groups/types using a low powered microscope.