SEA TROUT NIGHTS
Half a Century of Night Fly Fishing on Scottish Rivers
by John Gray
Book Review
The following review, of “Sea Trout Nights”, a new sea trout fishing book by John Gray, appeared in the January 2021 issue of Trout & Salmon magazine.
DREAMING OF SUMMER NIGHTS
John Gray, author of the newly published Sea Trout Nights, became devoted to the pursuit of sea-trout in the 1960s, since when he has indulged his passion on myriad Scottish rivers with occasional forays into England and Wales. He is a traditional fisherman, happy with a 9ft or 10ft cast of Maxima and a floating, sink-tip or sometimes an intermediate line. Not for him, it seems, the benefits of fluorocarbon, or the use of fast-sinking lines and outlandish lures to stir the fish from their torpor.
For the holidaying fisherman, Sea Trout Nights is a must, describing all the major association waters in England, Scotland and Wales for which tickets are available, and giving the annual sea-trout catch for each river. Snippets from his diaries add colour to what would otherwise be bare facts.
Scottish waters are covered most comprehensively, for this is where the author lives and where he learned his craft. His detailed description of the Spey’s Grantown association water, for example, will prove indispensable to the many anglers who go there each summer.
Further chapters cover tackle, tactics, flies, weather and water. The author’s famous needle tubes receive extensive coverage, and quite rightly so. They are one of the deadliest innovations of recent times and have given me many sea-trout and a good number of summer salmon, too.
Sandy Leventon
