Sea trout fishing questions

caorach

Well-Known Member
I mostly fish for brown trout in Scottish lochs. I also occasionally fish for salmon and although I don't consider myself a salmon angler, and know nothing about it, I'm lucky enough to fish on Lewis and so I catch what many might consider a lot of salmon for the few days per year that I devote to it.

However, I have access to a little spate river in the Hebrides which, I'm told, gets a good run of sea trout and this year I might put my mind to catching a few, or at least trying to. I've had a previous bad experience of sea trout fishing in the Hebrides on a loch with a friend who took 22 fish for the day to about 5lb and I had, well, one about 6 inches long. :)

I have the Hugh Falkus book, a limited intellect, and a few sea trout flies on order including some of the medicine/sunk lure/floating lure/secret weapon type that i consider to be "big" in keeping with the recommendations in the book. In a break with tradition I don't wish to use a net or a handgrenade.

So, is the info in the Falkus book still considered worthwhile? Is it worth fishing the flies he suggests in a small spate river in the Hebrides? Will fish actually move on such a small river even in low water? Is it actually necessary to fish at night? Any other hints and tips? (Can you tell that I know nothing at all about this?)

For reference here are some photos of the river, in fairly low water, just to give an idea:



 
I've caught about 4 sea trout worth the name (plus innumerable finnock fresh of the tide).

none of them were caught while actually trying to catch sea trout.

One came to a grayling bug trundled along the bottom. 2 came to Ally's shrimps while trying for salmon. One came to a sedge dry fly. All in broad daylight in a spate river.

So I have absolutely nothing useful to say other than that sea trout are confounding little bugg*rs who seem to defy all conventional wisdom.
 
fish in the darkest of dark nights...cast at 45 and let it swing with the flow..size of lure depends of colour and depth of the water...cast and step down cast and step down...simples and then hold on seatroot are proper figters..
 
The Hugh Falkus books approach to sea trout fishing is an excellent start and reference,and the majority of the flies can be used,which are in fact larger versions of brown trout flies.Teal Blue n Silver,Peter Ross,Bibio,Diawl Bach etc,the only thing that changes is the technique involved,to adopt to your particular river.
I have witnessed sea trout move through literally inches of water,almost a damp carpet is enough,and that river looks like such a river.

Secondly,fishing at night all depends on the conditions,and pardon the pun can be very hit n miss.I strongly believe the actual reason a majority of anglers fail to catch at night is not down to a lack of ability,it's just the conditions to catch these silver bullets have to be 100% to taget them at night.

The slower moving pools would be ideally left unitil dark,using a intermediate line,or a sink tip.
My two methods would be to cast slightly upstream,mend,then as the line bring it self around and in line with the bank,there of the slowest figure of 8's.
The other way I've had sucess is to again,cast out slightly upstream,mend thenstrip the flies back as fast as you can.

You can leave the better pools and try during the day with bushy bob flies,or deer hair flies,or using the method above.

In any case,my two fly approach usually consists of a tube on the point,and a smaller single on the dropper.

That looks like some of the rivers I fish,and you could literally jump across.I've cought plenty of sea trout out of such rivers.
I have targeted them at nigh,and cought them in the day.
We have a small inland loch on Anglesey,with a feeder stream,and that is full of sea trout,not big fish,2lb er's being specimen,but I catch them in the traditional loch style manner,fishing a team of flies,and fishing the ripple.

Hope that helps.
 
I tie all my sea trout flies as sparsely as I can. Medicine, Teal, Blue and Silver et al. Experiment as well. Swap the silver tinsel for gold, and change the hackle to orange. Also, I never tie any of sea trout flies with a tail. Tight lines
 
I tie all my sea trout flies as sparsely as I can. Medicine, Teal, Blue and Silver et al. Experiment as well. Swap the silver tinsel for gold, and change the hackle to orange. Also, I never tie any of sea trout flies with a tail. Tight lines


I like gold too, fantastic in a stoats tial, tied on a long shank hook but kept short to the eye, deadly for the "first half"

I know some top welsh sewin fishers and have been slowly converted to snake flies with a mono or braided core body, some argue they are only complicated tubes but the action can be fantastic and if it gives confidence then go for it.

Love seatrout fishing but like women, they are fickle bloody creatures!
 
lewis sea trout!!! stuff of dreams , try fishing edge of dark and see can you find a specific fly ' blue elver ' tis a great fly for up there i can speak from experience ;)
'
 
Hugh Falcus's book is still the best. You could try a muddler on the tip and a very small silver stoat, or a goat's toe on a dropper. Avoid crashing about and making a lot of splash. On a summer night, if you can plop a fly gently into the ring made by a rising fish you are away. Tight lines Todhunter
 
never fished at night myself
Late yes, but not night

I have a hard enough time keeping my line in the water and myself out of it in daylight!

that said the flies I tie are not necessarily traditional but use traditional colour combinations.
if you have ever taken the time to view your own flies under water they look nothing like they do when in your fly case!!

blue, silver, black, red, orange contracting colours

nothing too big
I caught a 5lb sea trout on the river Forsa in Mull, exactly what you describe by a highland spate stream
I was using a size 10 Jock Scott I had tied, on a dropper and in broad daylight!!
Confounding fish!


If you want to run a tail make sure it has a small flying treble:

A137507510_Connemara_Black-Flying_Treble.jpg
 
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+1 on the stoats tail. Silver body, black hen hackle with black hair wing. No tail. I find that a fly with a tail leads to more missed opportunities. Always worked marvellous first hour into darkness.
 
I fished hard for seatrout a few years back and i discovered a fly so deadly i never blanked with it so much so i fished with three,two on long droppers and tail. This fly is so deadly you have to get out the water to tie it on in fear of the trot snatching it from your hand and i have gone through half a dozen in one night due to the savage takes of the fresh run seatrout. If you want to know the name of this fly drop me a PM as i cant let it go viral or there would be an uproar from those not in the know..
PS im not having a leg pull.
 
+1 for falkus

​most of my success has been early mornings evenings and at night. I use small salmon flies stoats tail variants and munro's ,, on a night I sometimes skate a tube across the surface of a glide.

if you want to fish at night make sure you fish during the day and remember casting points that you could use during the night. remember how much line you need to strip off. If you need ta wade be careful make a note of any submerged boulders or holes . especially after a decent spate, gravel and rocks can easily be shifted causing pools to change meaning the fish wont lie in the same places.
 
I would also add,that I frequently watch the fishpal website with catches of the Scotish rivers.
It's apparent that in periods of good water/weather when salmon have been caught,so too have a number of seatrout,and thus in periods of good water during the high season,there is a likelihood that you can target sea trout during the daytime,whils trying to avoid or targeting salmon,especially so in spate rivers.
We only have to the look at the Tweed for the results,as the majority who fish,fish for salmon,but end up catching sea trout during the day,and a large perecentage are indeed caught during the daytime.
Whilst of course salmon are caught,sea trout are caught daily also in all heights of water.

Salmon tend to run on high water,and the best method is when the water is dropping off.
Se trout will NOT wait,I have witnesses this for myself,almost like a wake or v moving through the river,like mullet,they will barge,push and scrape through not only in high water,but the lowest water conditions,with of course the bigger fish moving first.

The best water by far is falling water,just after a flood,but depending on your river,there could be areas where a fly can't be fished,so why not try a worm and spinner,while theyre moving you can choose to stay in one place like a bank herron,or move pool to pool to cover more water,I wouldn't go fishing the pools during the day,that i intend to fish at night.

Black and orange seemed to work well for me last season,with all if not the majority of our Sewin falling to usually a no8 hook.
If you wan't me to tie you some just pm foc.
 
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Thank you to everyone for all the info and kind offers. This is very much a learning experience for me so it is a bit of fun mixed with a bit of "I've no idea what I'm doing" however as I have access to the fishing it seems mad not to make use of it.

I'm a bit put off by Falkus talking about having 50 or 100 fish in a pool as if you did that on this tiny river they'd be piled up about 5 feet in the air plus the thought of using a big fly in such a small water, even in low water, seems a bit odd. I've no idea how I'm going to keep from hooking the bottom. Despite this it is good to find that most of what Falkus says is considered useful as that at least gives me a starting point if only in relation to the times to be there.

Of course I'm a bit ahead of myself here as the sea trout don't run until July or even later but it is good to have a plan and to have something to aim at.
 
By the photos its not the creed so must be out in the "country"

Go into the sportsworld and ask the lady on the fishing counter, she is a mine of usefull information and will keep you right regards tackle, tactics and locations.

Lewis fishing is the best. I mainly fish for brownies and on the creed for salmon / sea trout, very poor this year due to low water.
 
Lewis fishing is the best. I mainly fish for brownies and on the creed for salmon / sea trout, very poor this year due to low water.

The water certainly didn't make things easy this last season though I was very lucky with the salmon despite only fishing for salmon on a few days. I also did really quite well at the trout this past year but wasn't so well and so wasn't walking the big distances of previous years, in part that was why I was fishing for salmon as it doesn't require much walking. For the most part I'm interested only in the trout but have been lucky enough to fish nearly all the systems for salmon, mostly by dint of accompanying friends rather than through any great interest myself, but I thought the sea trout might make a fun diversion especially if I can't get this chest infection/cold/cough type thing moved and so can't get fit enough to walk big distances.

Maybe next season I will have a go at the Creed, it is never somewhere that I've had much interest in as it is often much more crowded than I'd like. I have a friend who isn't very mobile and has an arrangement to get his car into the Castle Grounds and down to the riverside so I'd sometimes "ghillie" for him but I have no knowledge of the more remote reaches out on the moor, between the lochs and even above Loch an Ois. I've fished some of the lochs out there for trout long before there were associations and permits and all that stuff but that is about the limits of my experience on the Creed, and the only thing I ever caught was trout. However maybe if I can get out to the more remote spots it might be fun to give it a cast. Are there decent pools right up the river to Loch na Cairteach do you know? Is any of it actually worth fishing?
 
Hi Caorach, Barvas river is good but it is mainly for salmon(as you've found out:D). The wee river at Arnol is worth a go for seatrout I've had a few nice ones off it but haven't fished it for a number of years.Gress river has a nice seatrout run and I think you can get permits at the Back post office and it's easy walking from the mouth until quite far up.As you know, with all these wee spate rivers the amount of water is crucial but any fly with black,red and silver will do the job.
 
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