Sea Trout Fishing Articles

Sea trout may be caught during daylight hours in a falling river following a summer spate. In such conditions sea-trout often behave much like salmon and may be caught using similar tactics. Indeed, many sea trout are caught on flies and lures intended for salmon. But, following the spate, when the rivers have dropped back to near summer level ...  read more

Over the years, there have been many innovations in the world of fly tying, particularly in the design of flies and lures for salmon fishing. We might include in this flies aimed at both Atlantic and Pacific salmon and at Steelhead in North America, together with flies for salmon and sea trout fishing in Europe, particularly in the U.K., in the Scandinavian countries, and in Russia ...read more

How to tie a very slim sea trout tube fly for nigh fishing. Illustrated below are a few slim sea trout tube flies for sea trout fishing at night, or perhaps salmon during the day in clear water. They are very simply dressed on slim stainless steel needle tubes, outside diameter 1.5mm and length 15mm. Longer tubes may of course be used if needed. ...read more

Salmon and sea trout catch statistics for many of the major Scottish rivers have been selected from the records gathered annually and held by Marine Scotland for the Scottish Government and the summarised data have been combined in the graphs shown below to illustrate the general trend in salmon and sea trout rod catches throughout Scotland over the period 1952 to 2020 ...read more

How to make a heat-shrink Knot Guard

A great advantage of tube flies is that the hook used at the rear end can be selected according to conditions and may be very easily changed or replaced, for example when damaged, thus extending the usable life of the tube fly. A common method of attaching the hook is to fit a short length of flexible tubing such as PVC or silicone rubber over the rear of the tube fly and then insert the hook into this flexible sleeve.... read more

Should I stay or should I go? A serious question indeed! So much so that an adolescent trout may, on some rivers, go through a bit of an identity crisis. "Am I a brown trout or a sea trout?", she will ask. "Will I emigrate or stay at home?" The answer will generally depend, as it so often does, on the home environment and parental expectation ... read more

He takes again the well worn path his craft to nightly ply

On quiet summer pools where sewin silver sleeping lie   .. read more

To the casual observer, the River Endrick was deceptive. A pleasant little trout stream, one might think, a stream which, in places, a fit man could jump across. To the inexperienced eye, there would be little to betray the presence of the large numbers of late summer salmon and sea trout, which would make their way upstream from Loch Lomond on their annual spawning run ... read more

I have never liked braided loops as a method of connecting my leader to fly line. For many years, I needle knotted a short length of heavy monofilament to the end of the fly line, formed a loop on the end of this butt section, and looped my leader to it by way of a loop to loop connection ... read more

By August, the best of the night fishing is normally over on the Earn but, in the season of 2003, there was no "best" and, following a hard and unproductive early season, I had forsaken its familiar streams for pastures new, with some pleasingly unexpected results. Reluctant to give up on her altogether, though, a recent less than optimistic return visit and the dubious encouragement of a lost fish had, even at this late stage, given renewed hope .... read more

Picture the scene ..... a night in late July. It's one a.m. and you are alone by a favourite fishing pool. The river has gone quiet. You would be inclined to doubt that there were any sea trout in the river if it weren't for the brace of two pounders in the bass at your side. You tip them out on to the grass for another look ...read more

The Linlithgow Angling Club manages the trout and sea trout fishing on an extensive stretch of the little River Avon in West Lothian. Club members have done a great deal of work since the nineteen eighties to help the river recover from the heavy industrial pollution of earlier years ... read more

Half a century has passed since I caught that first shining sea trout on a once famous west highland river. It made an indelible impression, heralding what would become a lifelong obsession with night fishing. Of course, life has a habit of getting in the way of such obsessions and youthful enthusiasm often must give way, for a time at least, to more sensible preoccupations ... read more

July 1986 was a dry month with one or two spates near the end of the month and into August. There were no signs of any numbers of sea trout, except the odd one, in Cowden Mill Dam (in diary entries this will be known simply as "the Dam" until Tuesday August 12th. By all accounts, there had been exceptional catches of salmon on the river Leven early on in the season ... read more

The Waddington lure was devised by Richard Waddington in the middle of last century. In "Salmon Fishing", published in 1947, he writes, "My ideal salmon fly, however, is quite revolutionary. The shank will remain a steel bar - though were it not for the weight I should prefer something pliable like a heavy nylon strand. This will be linked with a plain loop to a small triangle ... read more

I parked at Cromlix bridge and walked up to the top of the middle beat of the association water, where the Blackford Farms beat begins. The Allan here is generally slow flowing, meandering through a sandy flood plain, with some deep holding pools for sea trout linked by some nice streams and glides, giving enough flow to work a fly at night. I fished downstream from the beat marker catching a half pound brown trout on the way ... read more

The Tingler is simply a needle tube fly armed with a lightly dressed single hook, as in the example above. It is intended primarily for sea trout at night but the principle and dressing may be adapted for any predatory fish. I think that a sparsely dressed tube, combined with the flared dressing on the single tail hook, creates a very fishy impression in the water ... read more

After heavy rain over the weekend and a high spate on Sunday, the river had dropped by Monday evening and was running clear, at a perfect height for the sink tip line. Others thought so too as five fishers had gathered at the dam for a 9.30 start ... read more

The Towy was running high and brown after rain the day before. The Cothi at Edwinsford had run off a bit and was looking good, so I decided to take the offer of a day ticket on the Cothi above Edwinsford in the hope that a sewin or two had run on the high water to the upper reaches ... read more

Sea trout, to many of us, rank as the most valuable of all our game fish here in the British Isles, providing unique night time sport on rivers from Cornwall to Caithness, from Connemara to Cumbria. The continued decline of sea trout stocks throughout the British Isles is a cause for great concern, both ecologically and economically ... read more
 

Thundery rain in the west ... temperature forecast to stay above 11°C. ... heavy cloud cover, upstream easterly wind, not strong enough to be troublesome but strong enough to keep mist off the water ... read more

The Loch Lomond system including the loch itself, which at twenty one miles long and covering an area of 17,500 acres, is Scotland's largest loch, the major tributaries Fruin and Endrick, and the River Leven which runs the short distance from Balloch to enter the Firth of Clyde at Dumbarton, can produce up to 1500 salmon and a similar number of sea trout ... read more

I am a great fan of very slimline fly bodies, particularly for sea trout fishing at night. In 1999, I devised the Needle Fly, the slimmest of all lures, for late nights on the River Earn in Perthshire. More recent years have seen the development of Needle Tubes for both salmon and sea trout fishing ... read more

I have never, to my recollection, been accused of being a religious man. To all outward appearances, I am as rational as the next man, quite normal. Really, I am. Yet I do, from time to time, get the feeling that perhaps something is amiss, that I am somehow just a wee bit out of the ordinary. The odd sideways glance, the occasional raised eyebrow ...read more

Below is a map of the Border Esk, showing links to photographs of many of the fishing pools on the river from above Langholm to the junction with the River Liddle below Canonbie, part of the Esk and Liddle Fishery. Best known for its sea trout, the Border Esk also has a decent run of salmon in the second half of the season ... read more

Below is a map of the River Liddle, showing links to photographs of many of the fishing pools on the lower river, part of the Esk and Liddle Fishery. Best known for its sea trout, the River Liddle also has a decent run of salmon in the second half of the season. The Esk and Liddle Fisheries beats include some of the best fly fishing water on the middle Esk and the middle and lower Liddle .... read more

The River Spey is justly renowned as one of the best of all salmon rivers, the lower half of the river characterised by mile after mile of the most perfect, and most sought after, fly fishing water imaginable. Anglers come from far and wide to cast a salmon fly on its hallowed beats, and pay a pretty penny for the privilege ... read more

It is not unusual to see the occasional posting on a fishing forum, requesting advice, from an angler wishing to tackle Seatrout for the first time. Although nowhere near an expert myself I do have some experience of catching that weird and wonderful fish and I remember the frustrations I experienced when I first began my journey down the road to addiction ... read more

Some time ago ago I posted some comments on fish vision in the `Nymph design` topic on an internet message board. As the information given then was of a generalised nature and knowing that fish vision is extremely species specific - i.e. different species have widely different eyesight - I decided to do some searching to see if I could find any up to date information ... read more