An extraordinary week of fishing. Part 1 : Sea trout.

On Tuesday last week we were joined by friend and fellow The Lure Forum member Ross Johnson for a week of fishing together at various marks around Scotland. Ross has been doing exceptionally well with his mission to catch as many different species as he can on lure and bait, however he still had a few species he was keen to target whilst up in Scotland! The first on his hit list was sea trout, a species which can be hard to catch at the best of times, so I wasn't sure of our chances. Scott was lacking my scepticism and had got some good advice from Martin Allison on likely spots and lures to try. After an hour and a half's drive, stopping on the way at the council offices to attain permits, we met Ross at the mark.

After a brief look about we all rigged up with a Hansen Pilgrim, a fairly traditional spoon lure. Scott and I went with silver with a blue flash and Ross went with silver with a red flash. We began to explore the shoreline of the estuary working the lures in the crease of water where tidal flow met the river current. I was keeping the lure quite high in the water with a straight medium retrieve when after ten minutes it was hit by a fish! The fish darted off and paused to shake its head in that unmistakable sea trout fashion before darting off again. I looked round to shout to Scott and Ross and no sooner had I uttered the words "fish on" it was "fish off " as the trout threw the hooks! I was disappointed but also excited as it meant there were some trout about. Ross came down to where I was fishing and I told him where I had hooked the fish. Needing no encouragement he began casting his lure and two or three casts later his rod was suddenly held high with the tip juddering as a trout had seized the lure and was madly shaking its head! Ross had wisely set his drag very loosely and gently played the fish in, cushioning its head shakes and little darting runs. Before long he had managed to beach it and a grinning Ross had landed his first ever sea trout.

Mission accomplished and pressure off the hosts! I though Sea trout were supposed to be hard to catch!

It was quickly returned and we carried on working our way down the shore. Scott had a couple of knocks and very briefly had a fish on and too I hooked and lost another fish before Ross was in again, although this time it was a mackerel! We carried on fishing and searching and before long I had another fish on which again managed to throw the hooks before Ross gave a shout and promptly landed his second sea trout of the session. Things then went quiet for a while and we headed upstream. Scott spotted a fish jumping up ahead and Ross and I quickly made our way up to where he was. At this point I decided to try and match Ross's lure so out came my spike it coloured marker and a red stripe was duly added to the lure. Literally two casts later I had a bite and struck into a sea trout. This time my drag was set very loosely and I kept the rod tip low and applied side strain. This stopped the fish from coming to the surface and thrashing which is normally where I find they can expertly throw the hooks. After a very tentative fight my first sea trout of the session was landed!

A lovely chunky fish which still had some of its brownie colouring.

Note my red colouring effort on the lure. Worked a treat!

That little tweak to the lure had made all the difference and soon I followed it up with another sea trout. This one despite my best efforts was a real leaper and made four aerial attempts at shedding the lure. Ultimately it was unsuccessful though and my second sea trout was landed and quickly returned. Ross meanwhile had caught another three trout in quick succession, one of which had spat out a live sprat when landed, showing how predatory they can be!

Ross was on a roll with some lovely silver sea trout.

All the fish were returned to continue there hungry hunt for sprats. Scott meanwhile had lost his silver Pilgrim and had been using a copper one which didn't seem to be anywhere near as attractive to the trout having only got him a couple of bumps so Ross gave him his silver and red one to fish with. Unfortunately the action dried up completely at this point and with darkness coming we decided to call it a night. All in all we were very pleased to put Ross onto his first ever sea trout and we certainly didn't expect to hook so many of them! Many thanks to Martin for his advice, I doubt we would have been successful without it!

Tight lines, Schogsky.