Friends of the Nethan-Valley

We would like to thank the following people, businesses and associations for the kind help and support they have given in making our Association what it is today.

John Romanus for his generous donation of £104.00p towards buying food for birds etc. THANK YOU.

Our most avid supporter June has come up trumps again. She has donated £100.00p in 50 pence pieces. Some of that has already been spent on wood and rabbit netting for a new compound which is almost complete.

A big thanks to John 'Big Joke' and Ann Frew from the Masons Arms Pub in Lesmahagow, they donated 3 Italian Golden Giants, 5 Japanese Quail, 1 bag layers pellets, 1 bag wild bird seed, 1 bale wood shavings and 3 carrying nets plus some lights.

We would like to thank John McLean of the MCAA for the small hen hut he donated to us by . The hut has two nesting boxes attached to the side which are easy to access. The hut was positioned yesterday and three eggs were found in the hut today. Looks like the hens like it as much as we do; also we wish to thank John Clark of the MCAA for his generous donation of Coffee, Tea, Coffee Mate and 2 boxes of biscuits these will be used for visitors.

Hello!
Came across your excellent and informative site when I googled egg boxes. Our club (Huby Angling Club), is a small affair with water on the middle Wharfe in Yorkshire. We don't have many good spawning burns on our stretch, and there is little in river spawning that we know of, but there are one or two good areas of ideal spawning gravels where we would like to try egg boxes. We can get eggs from our usual trout supplier higher up the river - but don't know where to buy the boxes. Can you help and let me know where you buy yours please? I've got a couple of samples that one of our members (Oliver Edwards - regularly shows the rest of us up with his skills!) brought back from Montana where they're used extensively apparently.
Our river is a bit of a hooligan and gets some ferocious floods, so presumably we'd have to be careful where we site boxes - we have in mind "side streams" behind a couple of islands which maintain good depths over winter and are sheltered to an extent - mind you we sometimes get 10' floods through.
So egg boxes will be an experiment. But hopefully if we can test viability and it works, trout hatching in our length will stay around better than stocked fish. We've been putting year old trout in lately (5000 this year) in the hope that they'll grow on and stay.
I'm going to spend some time on your site to try and learn from your work - very impressive levels of commitment and enthusiasm and great that you share it through the net- thank you for going to all that trouble.
Any info you can help with much appreciated.
Martin Bamforth
Huby Angling Club

Many thanks to Ian Kennedy of Total Encapsulation and Protection Solutions Ltd. for their very generous donation of £300. They heard about our recent break-in and were so disgusted by it. This donation will go a long way towards feeding our existing birds and increasing our attractions for visitors. Once again many thanks and we wish your company great success in the future.

Since the break-in at the hatchery we have been given a lot of support by caring people who were disgusted with what happened. We have had further donations towards the hatchery of equipment and livestock.
Many thanks to Stevie & Jackie Clarry for the two large rabbit hutches, 3 rabbits, 4 Tuxedo quail and a cock Bobwhite Quail. The Tuxedos are laying eggs as are our Japanese Quail.
Hugh Smith of Kypeside fishery donated 2 bags of barley, 2 bags of wild bird seed and 2 bags of chick crumb which will help us keep our birds in food for another couple of weeks.
William Weir donated several cage fronts which have now been converted into breeding cages many many thanks to everyone.

We had some really bad news this week, the hatchery and education hut were broken into. Two rods of little value and a DVD player were stolen. However whoever broken in also turned the water pipes in the hatchery down into the raceway flooding it. In the raceway were 46 three week old Japanese quail, 7 young chicks a guinea fowl chick and 6 ducklings. We managed to save the ducklings but the rest drowned. So to say that we were heart broken would be an understatement.
On hearing of this terrible deed Scottish Power have offered us a donation of £500.00p.
The news of this also reached the ears of Adrian Clarry from Carlisle who is a serving British Soldier. Adrian was so saddened by what happened that he decided to donate a Vivarium with all the necessary equipment and two Armour Plated Lizards for the visitors to see. We would like to say a special thanks to both Scottish Power and Adrian. The £500.00p donation will be used to increase our educational attractions.

Thanks to Mr. John Youngstone of Carfin who has been more than genorous in donating a 5ft aquarium and all related equipment to hatchery and also to Mr. Sandy Stewart of Carluke for collecting and delivering it to hatchery.

A thanks to lads from Upper Avon for their generous donation of 12 dip nets for children to use at hatchery ponds. they are much appreciated and will be well used by the end of the summer.

The visit by Pupils of Bannerman High School P.A.W. group and police cadets from Glasgow went exceptionally well. They were on a visit to the hatchery to learn about salmon poaching as part of their Wildlife Crime studies and were accompanied by Police Constable Craig Borthwick. The young men and women were also introduced to fishing, hatchery work, ornithology, and general habitat management. We would like to thank Samantha, Sara, and Logan (police cadets) Ashley, Alan, Roslyn and Sean for making the visit a very entertaining and enjoyable one. We would also like to congratulate Craig for the excellent job he is doing with these smashing people. You are all welcome back anytime and we wish you all well for the future, its guys like you who can make a difference.

Thank you to Hugh Smith manager of Kypeside Fishery for his generosity, Hugh has donated another 4ft aquarium to the hatchery and sponsored a new aquarium at a cost of £45.00p for our Wonders in Water project in local schools.

A new bird feeding table constructed and donated by John Bell of Wishaw. John is not an angler but is very keen on what we do.

A big thanks to June Gibson for donation of loose change as she puts it, the total being £45.00p this is to be used to feed wild birds, also Mark and Paula for donation of large bag of wild bird seed.

Due to lack of support and after 9 years of hard work by the committee of the Lesmahagow Junior Boys Football Club has been forced to fold. David Whitelaw Chairman/coach was so impressed with what we are doing that he decided to give £200.00 of the remaining club funds to the N.V.A.A. Although we are delighted with the donation it is with a great deal of sadness that we accept it> We know how much hard work was put in to running the football and training the boys. We will however endeavour to use the funds to give youngsters something else occupy their time such as fishing and fly tying. Many thanks to the David and the committee and well done over the past 9 years.

Kypeside Fishery for the 4ft aquarium they donated. This one is set up as a cross section of a pond with its inhabitants.

Thanks June Gibson for the two aquariums which she donated, these tanks will be put into schools.

Thanks to a Mr William Houston from Johnston for the kind donation of a 4ft aquarium and related equipment. This aquarium will be set up in the hatchery demonstrating a cross section of a river and its inhabitants.

A special thanks to Jane Kirkwood for her generous donation of £25.00

A new aerator was purchased from Aquatic Services, (Steve Cook gave us a £50.00p discount) this .25kw injection system should ensure
high oxygen content in pond in time of low flows and high temps.

We have been donated a 4ft aquarium from Kenny Pollock, which has now been set up in hatchery and will appear in the Flora & Fauna page.

Robert Wells Landscapes Ltd, from Larkhall, Robert kindly donated over £200.00p worth of shrubs to association.

W.Weir and J C Tait (Upper Avon Angling Club) for kind donation of 61 yearling trout for our brood stock pond.

June Gibson, for her kind donation of £50.00, to be used for Wild Bird Feed.

William Hamilton & Sons, Sandy McCracken & Son Ltd, Hamilton of Larkhall and the Larkhall Businessmen, for their kind cash donations that allowed the Association to purchase the Elastomer Eye-Tagging equipment.

Steve and Mel Cook from the Solway Fishery & Aquatic Services, New Abbey, Dumfries, for their kind donations of hatchery equipment and helpful advice over the years. Many thanks too, for the donation of a plankton net for the Insect Surveys.

The Avon Angling Club and the Mid-Clyde Angling Association, for their assistance and donations of hatchery equipment.

Gordon Shannon for his kind cash donations, which allowed the Association to construct the hatchery building and purchase our brood stock from Solway Fishery.

Mr John Harrison from Lesmahagow, for kindly allowing the Association the use of his land and pond where our hatchery is sited.

W.I.Meikle (Construction Services) Civil Engineers & Builders, Milton Industrial Estate, Lesmahagow, for the generous donation of materials and labour for the construction of a new 15ft circular tank.

June Gibson of Larkhall, for her kind donation of sample bottles and other equipment for the Insect Surveys.

Mid-Clyde Angling Association for their continued support and generous donation of books and sample bottles for the Insect Surveys.

Scottish Environment Protection Agency for their support and generous donation of a microscope, and many more invaluable items for the Insect Surveys.

Npower Renewables for their generous donation of £500 to be used for the repair of the Hatchery road and to create wheelchair access.