This article by Roland Carson raises a glass to the sea trout and all that fish for it.......
I was picking blackberries for a pie when it happened; it was September and I was behind a dry stone wall at the bottom of a fell in the Lake District. On the other side of the wall was a small river about 15' wide and beyond that a hillside covered in pines. The place is called High Mill and I know it well because it is close to where I was born. I heard a branch crack and crept over to the wooded river bank to see what was there. Then I saw her across the river; she was the image personified of all that I hold dear in a country childhood. This nymph was about 14 and scruffy, taken by surprise she looked up at me. There was an adoring whippet at her heel and a fishing rod in her hand. I spoke to her briefly across the stream and she was fishing the upstream worm, a method I have wanted to try with my fly rod. I went back to my blackberries and a minute later looked up and she had melted into the countryside without a sound.
I won't forget her and I hope that she, and others like her will always want to, and be able to wander our countryside fishing the hours away and learning, at first hand, a respect for their surroundings.
Fly fishing for sea trout is my personal passion and at dusk, whilst waiting to fish a pool on the Cumbrian Esk with my friend Les, I asked if he would give me a lesson in fishing the upstream worm with a fly rod. It is tricky to cast but after being shown how to 'rig' the rod I felt at least I would be able to fish the worm when conditions were appropriate.
The river was high for night fly fishing so we did not stay out late and when we arrived back at our cars, I realised that I had left my flask on the bench by the pool. Not relishing the walk back through the woods I decided to get up early next morning.
Saturday 12th September dawned wet and wintry, with hail showers. However, I arose early and went to the river, which was quite high. I decided that I may as well take a rod and selected the 10' Drennan that we had set up for 'worming' the previous evening. I put on my jacket and stuffed two worms into the pocket. I arrived at the pool quite wet, retrieved my flask and put the two worms on the hook. Casting it upstream into the flow I felt the weight going bumpety bump, bump, bump past me, just as Les had said it should. Suddenly it stopped, then it moved; I tightened into the fish which felt very strong in the brown water. It came to the surface and I saw that it was a salmon - my first!! It felt totally different from the splash of a sea trout, making strong, unstoppable runs which bent the rod double. I had no net so had to tire the fish, which I eventually managed to tail out onto the grass. I thought of T. H. White's book, England Have my Bones which I had just read, and a wonderful paragraph:
'He was on the bank! My first salmon. 10 1/2 lbs. 13 minutes. Incredible but killed. I stuffed a pound into Macdonald's pocket against his will, nearly cried, and went on fishing. Occasionally I peeped at the Salmon. For some reason I didn't like to give it a close look. It would have been a kind of hubris to look at it closely. It might have vanished!'
Not for me 10 1/2 lbs, only 4 lbs and no Macdonald to witness my success (perhaps I saved a pound). The rain stopped and the day seemed to brighten and as in Roland Pertwee's short story, The River God,
'And then I was lying on the grass, with my arms around a salmon that weighed twenty two pounds on the scale and contained every sort of happiness known to a boy'.
It didn't matter how big this beautiful silver fish was, because it was my first and I felt that it had been fair.
Not so my next salmon, which, to my mind, came as close to poaching as can legally be done with a fly rod. We crept and found the salmon in their lies in about 8 feet of crystal clear water. My companion put a prawn onto the end of the leader on a 10'6" Bruce and Walker Hexograph sea trout rod with a small weight to take it down and lowered it into the pool upstream of the salmon and allowed it to sink and bob down to where they were lying. Crouching on the bank I was able to observe clearly the reactions of the fish. They became agitated in their lies and as the prawn hung in the water near one of them opened its mouth wide in an exaggerated gape and immediately moved to the bait before sinking back into its lie. Once again it went to the prawn and took it into its mouth. "Its taken it," I called; my friend struck and the fish was hooked. A 7lb salmon which we slipped gently back into the pool.
Fascinating- I had to try it, just once. I lowered the prawn from where I could see both fish and lure. A clumsy move and the fish dashed off into the pool and swam around for about 15 minutes before settling back to the lie. I tried again and this time I watched the same agitation in the fish, followed by the wide gaping of the mouth and, with rod in hand, I saw a 6lb salmon take the prawn into its mouth and its startled reaction as I struck.
Was this success? I thought not. Successful angling, yes and very interesting but I almost felt guilty. There is certainly more to fishing that catching fish. It was once said of President Roosevelt that he was a good angler... he did not measure the pleasure by the size of the catch.
I am relatively new to fly fishing and will probably be the perpetual beginner. However, I am not new to hunting, Having been a practising falconer for many years. The respect that a hunter bestows upon his quarry is a vital element in what we have come to term as 'sport'. I began to ponder the may accounts that have come to my notice recently regarding salmon and sea trout. Do they really hoover up vast quantities of sand eels with factory ships, a major food item for the salmon? Do they really use these sand eels to make fish meal and incredibly, to fuel nuclear power stations? What are they thinking about when they trawl narrow estuaries, netting whole runs of fish (as one friend of mine observed during 1998)? Are our estuaries really being polluted with sea lice and fish
food designed to make caged salmon infertile? These issues and many more are enormous problems and urgently need to be addressed. I then considered my own fishing. I like to fish and I like to be in the countryside. I would like to eat a few herling fresh for breakfast after night fishing, I would like to catch a couple of sea trout big enough to invite friends toenjoy with us and ideally, I would like to do the same with a salmon and have my own rod caught salmon for Christmas morning breakfast with scrambled eggs, brown bread and champagne (a family tradition). But that is enough. I don't need to kill fish that I don't want. I care for the fish I catch. If I freeze them I wrap and tape them carefully in cling film and freeze them in a 'fish like' position. (I have seen many frozen fish which have been 'dumped' unceremoniously in the freezer to lie in a contorted position among the packets of peas and frozen chips, perhaps for years). I feel that it would have been better to allow those fish to continue on their reproductive journey.
When, on a winter's evening, with a wind howling through the ash trees outside my house, I eat my fish. I like to relive that night, as in 1998, in August, when Les and I fished on the Cumbrian Esk with his devoted golden retriever Bosun. We watched the stars move across the sky and fished fly after fly through the pool, in the grey dawn, in 'extra time', success came with a small double and we walked back through mist shrouded meadows carrying my prize, watching the sky 'catch fire over Scafell'. To me the sea trout is a wonderfully wild, exciting creature, the pursuit of which takes me to some lovely places and makes me stay, to witness all other things which enhance my time on the river -I owe the sea trout a lot, it has led me to meet many interesting people - I owe it respect.
As a relative beginner to this sport I never cease to thrill at the kindness bestowed upon me by fellow anglers. This summer I spent a wonderful afternoon with my friend Les and 'Bar' Woodall, a true sporting gentleman. Les expertly handled the boat and Bar and I caught small wild brown trout, which was a new experience for me and one which I hope to repeat in future years. Bar has a fresh enthusiasm for fishing which does not seen diminished by his years of experience.
Of the association waters I have fished, the Millom Anglers shines as an example of almost unbelievable courtesy. Approaching the river on an August evening I found three prominent members of the Club perched on the bank waiting for 'sea trout time'. resembling three wise monkeys they were busy putting the world of fishing to rights. I joined them for a while and when it came to fish they announced that as I was a visiting angler I should most certainly have my choice as to where I would like to fish. I believe that this refreshing attitude is a tremendous aid to riverside etiquette and ultimately makes all our time on the river more enjoyable.
This season I have witnessed sea trout lunging at a surface lure in the darkness, hooked and lost a good fish on the big sunk lure and spent several frustrating nights when every other cast invoked those exciting 'tweaks' that make hooking a fish seem impossible. I have had the good fortune to be able to look forward to eating my own smoked salmon on Christmas morning and when I do I will certainly raise my glass to wish well to all those fish that I have hooked and lost, to all those gentleman of the river who have enhanced my time there and I hope that with a sensible attitude to our sport we will be able to enjoy it for many years to come.
R. Carson 1998.