Irish
Sea Trout
The
sea trout is something of an enigma. It spends the greater part
of its adult in the sea each year, yet is is seldom seen or caught
in salt water. Like the salmon, it too returns to the rivers in
which it was hatched to spawn on the redds, before returning once
again to the salt.
Sea trout do run the
rivers of the east coast of Ireland but it is in the west of the
country, along our rugged Atlantic coastline where the best runs
of sea trout are found. The scores of rivers and hundreds of
loughs that are found on Ireland's west coast are the summer and
autumn haunts of this sea going member of the trout family.
On
the spawning grounds the progeny of the sea trout share their
environment
with those of the brown trout and the Atlantic salmon. The
juvenile sea trout is very similar in appearance to that of the
brown trout. As the sea trout grown, it develops organs lacking
in the brown trout and, as the parr becomes a smolt, salt
secreting glands develop in its gills. Its colour changes too,
resembling more a salmon than a trout. The smolts then migrate
to the sea, some returning to the river of their birth during
their first summer on a spawning run. Others spend more than a
year at sea before making the trip back to spawn. Thereafter, an
annual spawning run is common for sea trout.
Sea trout are a
prized catch and catching them has become
somewhat of an art form
in Ireland. Many of the rivers that they run in this country are
referred to as "spate" fed rivers. That is to say, the river
level is dependent upon the rainfall on the hills and the
subsequent run off into the river systems. In many areas of
western Ireland sea trout and salmon congregate in the estuaries
awaiting the flood in the river that will allow passage into the
systems of waterways that drain this remoter region of the
country. Waiting too are the anglers!
A network of local
knowledge, weather forecasts, telephone calls and sitting out the
storm clouds, brings the sea trout angler to the river a day or so
after the rainfall. He knows the the boggy land will be saturated
and give up its waters the the waiting rivers. With the summer
rain come the sea trout!
Come Dawn & Dusk
The
loughs of Ireland are a "stop off" for the sea trout as they make
their way upstream via the lough to the small streams where they
will eventually spawn. Secretive and shy creatures, they do fall
to many a trout or salmon fisherman as they tease them out of
their watery haunts with traditional, wet fly patterns.
But it is in the rivers
where the best sport can be had when fishing for Irish sea trout.
Small, lightly dressed flies, the dressings of which have been
handed down though generations of anglers, are fished in the runs
at the tails of pools. There, behind the the boulder, under the
bridge or in the shadow of the bank, lie the sea trout.
Dusk and dawn are the
preferred times of day to fish for these bars of silver that visit
our river systems and which give us so much pleasure to both catch
and to eat!
