 mentioned first of all that there will be two competitions running today. The first one is for the heaviest spring cot and the second one will be for the first spring cot both sponsored by Stirling Council and Kingston Distillery. I have a very great task to perform first and that's to present the fishing cuts to four members. The four fishermen who have contributed overall last year to conservation on the river and shore good sportsmanship. Can I call forward please the following Michael Leo, Jamil Ahmed, Peter McMachan and Hugh McCann. Can I just conclude my small piece at the beginning by thanking the sponsors who've made today possible. We have Deasting Distillery, Moor, Campbell Shortbread, Angling Active and of course Stirling Council. So ladies and gentlemen without further ado let me hand you over to our Chief Executive Stuart Carruth, who is also a very keen angler. Stuart. Good morning everyone to take the opportunity and an event like this to to thank the fisheries team. They work very hard at building relationships with all of you and having spent time out on the river with the team I know how much hard work they do in making sure that the river is in as best possible condition for you guys to fish. So can I have a round of applause for the fisheries team of Stirling Council. I also want to just talk a little bit about conservation. We're all very much aware of the decline in salmon stocks across Scotland. That makes conservation a really important thing and I know that the beats here in 2010 was the best beat for the number of fish caught, I think it was about 1300 caught and to make sure that that continues a lot of things need to be put in play, not least the work on conservation and we're going to get some conservation caps later in the in the morning. So again really important that we make sure that we all do what we can in relation to conservation and salmon and I just want to just say last thing before I hand over to Adam Henson and that's tight lines for 2015. Well good morning everybody. It's a huge honour and a great treat for me to come to Scotland and to come to the opening of the river and some of you may know me off country file, the programme on Sunday evening and we're getting around seven million viewers regularly. We're in the top five BBC programmes which means that the UK people are very engaged in what's going on in the countryside, not only those who live and work in rural areas but those in the towns and the cities as well and they need to know about things like this, the celebration of the river and the work that's being done on it and it's wonderful that the community has come together and the school children are here and the fishermen and the council everybody working together for a sole goal of the of the health and welfare of the river and the surrounding communities and so for me to come and help opening it is as I say is a real a real treat and I'm a keen fisherman myself. I used to fish as a boy but mainly trout fishing and I used to time my own flies but I've only ever tried salmon fishing once and I was failed miserably so hopefully that'll be more good fortune today but I as we heard from Stuart I think that the conservation behind fishing is absolutely essential and you people are the eyes and the ears and most importantly the voice of the river and you need to speak out and you need to get the message out there what you're doing and what you're trying to achieve and there's lots of ways of doing that with local papers and magazines but also with modern technology with Twitter and Facebook and Flickr and those sorts of things and get on your soapboxes and shout about how wonderful it is because there are powers outside our environment that can damage what you have and we've been fishing these rivers for hundreds if not thousands of years and we want to be fishing them in the future for hundreds of years beautiful and instant whiskey that I had to sip of earlier half of it and we'll be closing down the river blessing the salmon as it goes and then we'll go straight back into the distillery made into whiskey again so it's nothing is lost oh heavenly the teeth is open for the salmon season of 2015 as a boy I used to do a bit of trout fishing but I've never tried salmon fishing so I'm very excited about today and for me it's a great honor to come up to Scotland and help open the river teeth being part of the parade and calendar this morning was just amazing a wonderful feeling where there was the school children the anglers and the county council all coming together to help promote the area and promote salmon fishing of course anglers on the river are the eyes the ears and the voice for what's going on out here and conservation on the rivers is absolutely essential and it's wonderful that sterling county council are doing so much to promote that and working so closely with the anglers to make sure that fishing carries on in this area for not just the next 10 years but hopefully for hundreds of years ahead of ourselves thank you very much to Angling Active who are just off Junction 10 of the M9 they've lent me all this kit to try and catch the king of fish just hope it works okay well we're here on the banks of the the castle pool at Blair Drummond a beautiful spring morning and the river teeth here and the castle on the backdrop and as Robert Bunge would say who could ask for moan man and I've been spending 10 minutes with the Adam Henson here and his business partner Duncan to show them the delicate art of spearcasting and I have to say within 10 minutes they're casting like champs so they've done really well the morning session is going to be a teaching session and the afternoon we're hoping to maybe put them into a fish or two but anyway it makes no difference it's the start of a new wonderful season and here's hoping for everybody concerned it's going to be a better season than last tight lines to everybody wonderful we've had depleted runs over the last couple of years and it seems to be something more at sea than what's happening in river although we've got problems within river predation navy and predation and marine predation predation which is a difficult subject but if we look after what we're doing in the rivers then you know it's up to national international governments to look after what's happening at sea we do our own bit and our own bit is certainly to conserve and protect the spring run we've got a very diminishing run of spring fish and we've got to look after them and I would urge everybody to follow the guidelines and to put every spring fish back until June then by all means get a good run of growth take one for the pot no harm in that but we must conserve the spring run that is paramount to the continuance of our sport my name is Stuart Carruth I'm the chief executive sterling council it's a great great day the opening of the salmon sea fishing season on the river teeth and I think one of the reasons why it's such a great day is that it really highlights the work that sterling councils fisheries team does right through the season but also off season as well I was fortunate to spend some time with the team just towards the tail end of last year and really got the opportunity to see them working with the anglers anglers building up relationships with them but also the conservation work that they do on the river making sure that it's in its best condition possible to enable the the angling the fishing to take place and I think at a time when our salmon stocks seem to be in decline conservation work of this type is absolutely critical for the future sustainability of salmon so just to conclude it's a great been a great day all credit to the team for the work that they do and just to say tight lines for 2015 today was opening day on the second of February on the river teeth at calendar for sterling council fisheries today we've seen around the 200 people mark which in a cold February morning for a small town is absolutely fantastic for the local economy you know the local businesses put on some stuff for the anglers as well which is always which is always a bonus the fishery is not just a fishery it's a it's a way of life to people up here and if people we've got a lot of visitors come and visit this fishery for outwith the sterling council area that all brings revenue and not just for the council but for areas around about for the local businesses conservation is very high in the agenda at the minute because what's happened in 2014 it's been very well publicized that it was the worst year on record for salmon catches sterling council leads by example when it comes to conservation the measures we have in place are some of the very best in the fairly united kingdom where a compulsory catch release until the first of June we exceed the scottish government recommendations we have a five carcass tagging system in place it runs throughout the season scottish government have now accepted that and are looking at that as a way of giving anglers quotas we also are a hundred percent catch release a hen fish in 2000 in october so for us the anglers have really came on board and if it wasn't for their continuous hard work we wouldn't have the fishery we have today here we have the uh the tall bit memorial trophy uh in memory of david who died several years uh and this uh it got a picket bar guy so i'm thinking something else get sorry um this is for the heaviest fish caught all year and the prize is presented to michael wooty on behalf of michael on behalf of science i mean we can't be here today because he's off doing he's unfortunately he's in the category in fish today a few words and i'm very pleased to accept this fabulous trophy on on his behalf and i would really like to pray tribute to mr and mrs table but this is keenly fished for every year and they've always been great supporters of the of the teeth fishery so on behalf of silent on behalf of myself and really everybody here thank you very very much indeed it's got a photograph of the fish it was 25 pounds and for those of you that have not really seen a fish like that that's what it looks like oh mr henson i know that you're staying up in the bulk of the plane and i've got a long standard love of that plane and indeed where where you are staying this evening but it's interesting to just to tell you that that 25 pound fish probably went right up there past the landing poles into the into the into the royal pasta hotel into the groin and into the large and spawned up there so as as well as the the council workers fishing people good good radio let's also think about the hill farmers and the gamekeepers and the stockers and all these people are there who look after the nursery areas and these nurseries are really really important because if they're working hard along with volunteers to take obstructions to access up the burns and all the rest of it and the whole system is is going to work and i hope that you sad with the your connection with the bbc will come up and showcase the transects there are three rods didn't know about me for the first fish caught myself and debbie went down to play draw the walk and with a lot of discussion on the way we'll say we'll give it to the best caster the person who's improved the most they make you please announce the results a lot was down to tom onens i don't get some system here that he's never cast a double-handed rod he's never used it i can't believe that because he's outstanding so there's only one winner i don't need one oh very much it's a great honor i've set to have this lovely lovely price and dunk and i were comparing the bits of grass that we were catching we left into it for a little while and i went off for a bit of private tuition to try and you know master the space cast me came back and he had caught something quite large which was his own face he acted glasses on so he protected his eyes and everything was fine thank you very much you don't need to keep that