scottish hydro dams

[andy m]

was wondering when some of the dams were constructed and finished were there any stocking of brown trout. i know that a lot of lochs were already there so they would just flood to much bigger lochs. was having a wee look but could not find anything about trout. a lot about salmon and fish ladders and fish lifts ect. i would think it must have brought up the avg weight on new flood lochs for a few season as fish would be grazing on submerged fields. but if it was a river that was not too a good trout river would the hydro have stocked some fish into the dam. although there is as i said a lot of praise from hydro how they help out the salmon there words i remember many times over the years going north up he a9 on fishing trips my auld dad saying look at the river garry the perthshire one thats knackerd it was a great salmon river he would tell me long before my time so i just took his word for it not sure cheers andy m

[Inchlaggan]

The Perthshire Garry is fecked for all species by the abstraction of water.
On other (I cannot speak for all) hydro systems trout, pike and charr populations were unaffected by dam building- the majority of which took place from the early 1950's to 1960's.
There was little (if any) stocking of trout, and the populations recovered well enough. You might be correct on the increase of average trout weight- the British record for a fly-caught trout was established a few years after the creation of Inchlaggan as a loch, previously that had been a meandering part of the Highland River Garry.
Salmon was, and is, another matter. Take a look at the Ness and District Salmon Fisheries Board website for what is being done today to repair the damage to salmon fishing above the Invergarry dam.

[andy m]

thanks inchlaggan, do you know what year loch quoich dam was constructed and if it was a river or there was a loch already there that was just expanded to its current size. thats the problem some of these highland lochs are very big lochs so it must have affected the fishing for a good few years for the fish to spread out into a change and size by thousand of acres in some cases of certain new dams. intresting about the pike and char in loch garry you mentioned were they present in the river garry pre hydro cheers andy m

[Inchlaggan]

Quoich dam was around 1960, there was a smaller Loch Quoich before the dam. There was also a Loch Garry before the dam, both expanded in area/volume. Pike and charr in both the old and new lochs.

[Bobfly]

Suggest you try and track down a copy of Power From The Glens. This book details all sorts of info about the various scheme collection and generations.
The River Garry extraction on the A9 below Drumochter is being removed at the moment and might help restore the flow levels down stream.

[andy m]

thanks inchlaggan thought about loch garry as a loch that must have been there after i posted when you mentioned char cheers andy

[andy m]

bob fly that might be a good book to try and get. well hope what you are saying about the river garry could be good news. might still take a long time for it to become a decent river but has to be a long over due fix to a river thats i have seen as a mere trickle in my lifetime 49 years cheers andy

[Bobfly]

Having had a quick check, Power From The Glens can be downloaded from the Scottich Hydro Electric website, or at least it could a few years back. That gives details for each scheme. There is another book called "The Dam Builders - Power From The Glens" which I think is by Ian Martin and that is a different publication and more about the works involved and the people working on the schemes.

[Clan Chief]

here's a PDF that's available to download.

http://sse.com/media/87078/powerfromtheglens.pdf

[andy m]

thanks for that clan chief will get a read of that