An Empty Net

One of the downsides of living in a remote community is the accessibility to specialist tradesmen. You either have to pay for someone to travel to visit you or, if possible, take the problem to the tradesman. Today it was the latter option and I was up early to take the lawnmower to Lochgilphead for repair, a 2 hour return journey in the car. Never mind, at least it is now in the queue of mowers to be fixed I will hopefully get it back in a couple of weeks, by which time the grass will be about a foot high with all the rain we have had!

When I got home I noticed a group of people hauling in a fishing net at the mouth of the river. Each year the authorities (think its possibly SEPA) send a team of men and a boat who net the mouth of the river at high tide to do a stock check on fish entering the river. The Carradale Water used to be a fine salmon river, but like elsewhere fish numbers have decreased dramatically and few are now caught. For those that are the local angling club has a catch and release policy, aimed at helping restore fish stocks. As the net was hauled in I saw nothing other than seaweed being pulled from it before it was cleaned and returned again to the boat.

I took a number of shots of the proceedings, but as the light was poor none turned out that well. Instead, I played about with a few and settled on this one as I like the arrangement of the people. I desaturated the colour to make it look like an old picture from the 50's or 60's when boats would pass this spot en route to checking the salmon nets fixed to the nearby shoreline.