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A guide to sea trout fishing on British rivers with notes on where and when to fish, fly fishing tactics, tackle and flies

Of all our game fish here in the British Isles, the sea trout holds, for me, the greatest fascination and, it might be said, the greatest challenge. Like the salmon, the sea trout is a migratory fish, spending half the year feeding at sea and returning each summer to while away the long summer days in the river of its birth until spawning time in the autumn. In some ways, the sea trout is like both the salmon and the brown trout, in others, like neither. A difficult fish to lure during the light of a summer's day, in all but spate conditions, the sea trout will sometimes play the angler's game under the cover of darkness. The sea trout fisher must then be, like the sea trout, a nocturnal creature, venturing out at dusk and fishing through the wee sma' oors of the night on a river running at or near summer low level, often shrunken by summer drought. In such low water conditions, the wary sea trout lies inactive during the day but often comes alive with the fall of darkness, when we have our best chance of a fish, especially on a mild night when a good cover of cloud keeps the night temperature in double figures. But even then, the sea trout seldom plays by the rules. There may be times and places where sea trout might come readily to a well fished fly but it is not always easy to predict when and where that might be.

In these pages, I hope to set out a few basic guidelines for those about to embark on this most fascinating and, for many of us, obsessive, of pastimes. Topics will include where and when to fish; sea trout tackle and tactics; sea trout flies and fly tying; maps and photographs of British sea trout rivers; and a series of sea trout fishing articles focussing particularly on seatrout fishing in Scotland. Most of my sea trout fishing, almost all of it nocturnal, has been done on Scottish rivers, in particular the Endrick, Earn, Allan, Spey and Border Esk, with an occasional foray elsewhere, for example to Wales, where a one hour July evening session on an upper beat of the little River Cothi gave me, if not perhaps my biggest, certainly my best fish to date, a shining silver sewin of 9 pounds. Although my sea trout catches have seldom been so notable, I have generally been well enough rewarded for “good attendance” on the rivers I have fished. One of the great attractions of sea trout fishing is its uncertainty, so much so that I sometimes wonder, on a quiet night, if I have really learned much at all during the forty years I have spent in search of them, but then an occasional successful night, when things fall unaccountably into place, goes a long way towards restoring that all important illusion of competence. What little I have learned might, I believe, be reasonably applied to other rivers throughout the country, with some hope of success, and perhaps those setting out on their first sea trout fishing season will find my ramblings, set out in these pages, of some interest.

sea trout fishing