More seatrout fishing

This week I did very little fishing. In fact I only went once a couple of days after we had some heavy rain. The river was still a bit coloured but it had already fallen back to low summer level and most of the drifting weed that caused me problems last time had gone, presumably washed out with the rise in water level.

I still have the seatrout bug so I had an early lunch and arrived at the water about half past twelve (noon). I tackled up with a short wire (pike protector) trace and a J11F Rapala. I began to fish by casting up and across and retrieving fairly quickly with the flow. The lure does not fish very deep so it was easy to bring it down through even quite shallow weedy water. After half a dozen casts I saw a big bow wave follow down off a shallow riffle but I had no bite and the fish did not come again.

Working my way upstream I fanned three or four casts across each patch before moving ten metres further and starting again. I'd just reached a deep, fairly turbulent pool and cast across to the stronger flow on the far side when there was a flash just where my lure was followed by a mighty yank on the rod and I was into a fish.

It was a good sized fish and my first though was 'salmon', but then it came splashing to the surface and I saw the broad spotty back - seatrout! Several strong runs later I was beginning to think about where to land it and decided to walk downstream. The banks are high and the water is deep so it was never going to be easy. I led the trout downstream and realised I had made a mistake when, on three occasions, it dived into the bank under my feet and threatened to tangle me in the submerged grass. Anyway, the current was strong so going back upstream was not an option. Eventually I was able to lead the fish to a small slack and risking life and limb, gilled it and lifted it out. Twelve-and-a-half pounds of cracking male seatrout.

If you have any comments or questions about fish, methods, tactics or 'what have you.' get in touch with me by sending an E-MAIL to - docladle@hotmail.com

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More seatrout fishing.

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