A Summer of Sea Trout?

Things are looking up for night sea trout fisherman this summer, with 12 fish recorded recently. The Lyd doesn't usually see many sea trout until late June, so with reasonable numbers spotted in the pools already, we are hoping for a bumper season. The fish currently resident in the pools are mostly 2-3 pounders and bright silver. July will see the start of our school peal run and with huge numbers of smolts present in early spring, we are hopeful for large numbers of these returning.

If you have never tried the Lyd, it's a small, intimate river and you are fishing for sea trout at close quarters. All that's required is a 9ft 6wt outfit with a floating line, and it's the perfect training ground to get started in night fishing. The peak of the season is usually the last week of July, though these are migratory fish and therefore rarely predictable. We have some availability left in July, so please call us if you are interested.

Jon Barnard with a fish just shy of 3lb, beat 3 on his size 4 WMD (with extra flash!)

Russell Clarke with his first ever sea trout, 2 1/2lb, beat 3 on a size 4 WMD

Is this a record?

A superb sea trout , 27 inches long and as fat as a pig, for David Pilkington today. The Tamar had risen and coloured after a half-inch of rain yesterday, tempting David to try for an early peal, and this fish took his Black Tadpole at the very tail of Quarry Pool. As a highly experienced sea trout angler, David had cunningly contrived to have a loop of loose fly line wrapped around the handle of his landing net behind his back at the very moment the fish took - somehow he managed to disentangle the line before the fish tried to leave the pool.

The fishy Gods were being kind, the single barbless hook stayed firmly in the big peal's jaw and the fish eventually slipped into the net at the second attempt. Until the fish rolled at close range, David was convinced the fish was small salmon, as it did not fight with the usual terrifying speed and wildness of most sea trout. Weights are subjective, but a chunky early-season peal of 27 inches has to weigh around 7 1/2 pounds. The barbless hook slipped out very easily, and this cracking sea trout should live to spawn many more if its kind.

Mister Hawthorn - You're Late!

At long last, I saw the first Hawthorn fly of the year yesterday. Bibio Marcii is so named because it appears on St. Mark's day, which is 25th April. Being almost a month late demonstrates what a cold, late spring we are having here in Devon. Our little wild brownies absolutely love this big, juicy land-born fly, which falls helplessly to the water on breezy days, and we are having plenty of those.
The trout were rising well in the slower pools, and there is still a good flow after a big spate last week. As well as a few hawthorns, there were plenty of olives, some yellow may duns and more black gnats, and fish caught were fat and full, as they jolly well should be in late May. The Mayfly itself, Ephemera Danica, is at last being seen on the Ottery, where two rods caught 45 trout yesterday. I told them that they could try harder, but it was a reasonable effort.
David Pilkington

Summer is a-coming in - I think!

You may be forgiven for thinking that, after more than 60 years, the sudden realization that summer is actually happening again may not really do much to me - but it still does! Today, despite a cool wind, the fresh green leaves glowed in the odd glimpses of sun, black gnats swarmed over the stickles for the very first time this year, rhododendrons bloomed on the Lifton Park drive - by God it felt good! A few trout rose, more in some pools than others, but they were catchable on dry fly. An inch of extra water after yesterday's rain has helped push more smolts seaward, but they are still not all gone yet.
All things are late this season, not a sign of a hawthorn fly, and in the frenzied melee of hirundines over the river fields there are still no swifts. I am sure they will be here soon, as will the salmon, to catch a salmon at Lifton before the swifts arrive is rare indeed. Rain is falling again as I write, and should give the little smolts encouragement to head down-river tonight - I wish them well on their dangerous journey, and look forward to their return.
David Pilkington

Smolts Galore!

The seemingly interminable non-Spring of 2013 rolls gently on, at last a few glimpses of the sun,but everything natural, in terms of flowers, trees, insects etc., appears to be 3 or 4 weeks behind. One thing, however, to brighten the horizon, is the excellent numbers of smolts in our water. All the rivers, from the larger Tamar to the humble little tributaries like the Wolf and Thrushel, are stuffed full of both salmon and sea-trout smolts. These brave, beautiful little bars of silver are currently dropping down every night towards the sea, helped by smatterings of rain and decent flows in the rivers.
I cannot recall seeing so many, the pool above the gauging weir at Polson on the Tamar was alive with them, dimpling the surface across the whole pool. Their presence has not gone unnoticed by the cormorants, fortunately just before our licence expired, so did one of a pair seen on the Tamar.
This superb smolt run augers well for the future, many of the sea-trout smolts were as much as 8 inches long, and these will be back in the river again by July, having at least trebled their weight. The run of school peal should be good this year, as for the salmon it will be one or two full years before they return.
Trout fishers have been reporting these smolts from all the beats, along with a few nice brownies, best around 10 inches, and an odd grayling.  Fly hatches are just now starting to build, I saw more Grannom on the Lyd this morning than I have done so far for the year. Large dark olives and large brook duns are about, we are expecting the swarms of black gnats soon, and of course May is very much the fly fisher's month. David Pilkington  

One swallow doth not a summer make!

It certainly was April Fool's Day. Tim and I were working on the Tamar yesterday morning,  getting the riverbank back into fishable order after the winter floods, and there was a swallow. I looked again, expecting someone in a Jester's outfit to be playing it on a bit of nylon, but no, it really was a swallow.
The sun was out but the bitter east wind cut like a knife. Just briefly, while digging silt out of a flight of steps, in a very sheltered spot, I shed my coat, and contemplated shedding my jumper. Standing back in the wind on top of the bank admiring my work, I was glad I didn't.
Down beside the water, in the sun and out of the wind, new growth of nettles and celandines was thrusting hopefully upwards. A pair of grey wagtail flitted about, hoping for a hatch of fly, rather like the anglers. On Easter Saturday we saw a peregrine carrying some unfortunate songbird, being given serious grief by a pair of ravens.
There does seem to be some faint hope of this present arctic blast moving elsewhere by next week. The trout and the anglers will all be very grateful. David Pilkington.