While we are on the subject of 'Back In The Day' ..... Who remembers visiting the Mill of Newe hatchery in Bellabeg?
The River Don bailiff team operated the hatchery, headed by Jim Kerr. An old meal mill, the hatchery came into operation in 1964 as a result of industrial pollution on the lower reaches of the Don affecting salmon stocks.
From what I can remember, the mill had three floors, the top floor held water feeder tanks for the egg troughs, which were located below. The bottom floor housed most of the rearing tanks, and there were also a couple of external rearing tanks, making about fourteen in total I think.
The egg troughs and rearing tanks were basically gravity fed by water from the Deochry Burn and there was a brood stock holding pen in the burn too, I can clearly remember the size of some of the fish in there!
Salmon, sea trout and brown trout were reared at the hatchery, and mainly stocked out to the Don and tributaries as yearlings and unfed fry. I believe all Mill of Newe fish were reared from native River Don brood stock and I can certainly remember seeing them being netted at the weir by the bailiff team. It was an awesome place to visit
To give you an idea of the scale, in June 2001, Jim Kerr reported stocking out approximately 40,000 brown trout fry, 50,000 sea trout fry, 250,000 salmon fry and 200,000 yearling salmon parr!
