Sea Trout Fishing
A guide to sea trout
fishing on British rivers with notes on where and
when to fish, fly fishing tactics, tackle and flies
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home from the sea the rapid run
home to the redd the journey done
to
lie and wait by light of day
to
stir and wake as green turns grey |
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Of all our game fish here in the
British Isles, the sea trout holds, for me,
the greatest fascination and, it might be said, the
greatest challenge. Like the salmon, the seatrout is
a migratory fish, spending half the year feeding at
sea and returning each summer to while away the long
summer days in the river of its birth until spawning
time in the autumn. In some ways, the sea-trout is
like both the salmon and the brown trout, in others,
like neither. A difficult fish to lure during the
light of a summer's day, in all but spate
conditions, the sea trout will sometimes play the
angler's game under the cover of darkness. The sea
trout fisher must then be, like the sea trout, a
nocturnal creature, venturing out at dusk and
fishing through the wee sma' oors of the night on a
river running at or near summer low level, often
shrunken by summer drought. In such low water
conditions, the wary sea trout lies inactive during
the day but often comes alive with the fall of
darkness, when we have our best chance of a fish,
especially on a mild night when a good cover of
cloud keeps the night temperature in double figures.
But even then, the sea trout seldom plays by the
rules. There will be times and places where sea trout
might come readily to a well fished fly but it is
not always easy to predict when and where that might
be. If we stick at it, though, we are occasionally
rewarded for good attendance .....
A Good Night on the Spey
One of eight Spey sea trout
taken on a black and silver Needle
Tube Fly in two hours of fishing in the very early
hours (midnight to 2 am) of June 23rd 2014
Needle Tube Flies
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Sea Trout
Needle Tube Flies |
Simple Snake
Tube Flies |
The Search for Sea Trout
In these pages, I hope to set out a
few basic guidelines for those about to embark on
this most fascinating and, for many of us,
obsessive, of pastimes.
Topics relating to sea trout fishing will include:
A few sea trout "Tinglers" (needle tube flies
armed with single hooks)
note the upturned single hook, which adds to the stability
of the fly
The focus of this website will be on night time seatrout
fly fishing
on British rivers. Most
of my sea trout fishing, almost all of it
nocturnal, has been done on Scottish rivers, in
particular the Endrick, Earn, Allan, Spey and Border
Esk, with an occasional foray elsewhere, for example
to Wales, where a one hour July evening session on
an upper beat of the little River Cothi gave me, if
not perhaps my biggest, certainly my best fish to
date, a shining silver sewin of 9 pounds. Although
my sea trout catches have seldom been so notable, I
have generally been well enough rewarded for "good
attendance" on the rivers I have fished. One of the
great attractions of sea trout fishing is its
uncertainty, so much so that I sometimes wonder, on
a quiet night, if I have really learned much at all
during the forty years I have spent in search of
them, but then an occasional successful night, when
things fall unaccountably into place, goes a long
way towards restoring that all important illusion of
competence. What little I have learned might, I
believe, be reasonably applied to other rivers
throughout the country, with some hope of success,
and perhaps those setting out on their first sea
trout fishing season will find my ramblings, set out
in these pages, of some interest.
Tight Lines
John Gray
sea trout
fishing |
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