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Anglers can catch sea trout in the sea as well as in rivers
The vast majority of sea trout caught by anglers are taken from rivers by fly, spinning or bait fishing. But we all know that sea trout spend a lot of their time feeding in coastal waters, so in principle it should be possible to catch them there by angling. Bass anglers, who spend a lot of time roaming the shores, often see sea trout leaping, and occasionally will hook one; but landing them is another matter as their aerial antics, so different from other sea fish often shake free the hooks.
Photo: Nigel Milner with a shore-caught sea trout for the CSTP
In a few selected estuaries and sea lochs in Scotland angling for sea trout in the sea is quite common and even the preferred method, but elsewhere it is unusual. However this may be due to fashion and off the Anglesey coast sea trout fishing has proved to be very successful in the last two years. Nigel Milner, part of the Bangor University team and a keen angler, has been prompted by the Project to spend time finding suitable places where sea trout can be consistently found and caught by rod fishing. The best places are shallow intertidal, rocky ground where fast current sweep prey items of sandeels and sprats to the sea trout sheltering from the currents. At times during 2011, sea trout have been very abundant, with literally dozens of fish leaping in an area of a few hundred square metres, well within spinning distance of the shore. Some interesting features have emerged. At the Anglesey sites most of the fish in June and July are small fish (see photo), probably this year’s post-smolts, and on some days the fish have all been of one similar size, on another tide they appear to be different sized fish, suggesting some shoaling or at least aggregation of age/size classes. Some very large fish are seen occasionally, over 10lbs, but these are obviously far less abundant and largest so far taken weighted 4lbs.
Photo: Seven sea trout taken from the shore for the CSTP and the lure than caught them
After some trial and error the best way to hook them appears to be small silvery lures like Tobies and Dexter wedges, or small plugs, and a key has been to use nylon line not the braid popular amongst bass lure fishermen, because the stretch of the nylon cushions the leaping actions of the fish. You need to get the time of tide right too. Ebb tide at some sites is the preferred time, possibly because it has faster currents and the lures can swing round in the same way as in river fishing. That is presumably a feature of the local shore configuration. But it works and Anglesey has produced 17 fish so far in 2011 and, when marine dwelling sea trout have proved so hard to capture by nets on the open rocky coasts, this is a valuable sample. So why not get down to the shore, hunt out some suitable spots and try it!
Photo: Sea trout and bass keep company: a good sea trout and bass taken from the Anglesey shore...
... and the sea trout had been feeding on sprats, the lure that it fell for is shown at the top.
