SEATROUT REPLIES

[Guest Darrin Simpson]

THANKS MEN EXCELLENT ADVICE LOADS TO TAKE IN BEFORE THE NEW SEASON, YOU LOT MUST HAVE BLISTERS ON YOUR FINGERS. TWO MORE QUESTIONS THE ADUR IS A MUDDY RIVER WILL THE SEATROUT STILL LOCATE A FLY OR SHOULD I USE A SPINNER ? DO SEATROUT SEE A FLY AT NIGHT OR IS IT VIBRATION ? TL DARRIN

[Guest Mike Connor]

In coloured water, in daylight, use larger brighter flies. Orange, or fluoresecnt green etc. Black works as well usually.

 

It is possible to tie in a "twister tail" on a black lure for instance. This gives you vibration as well. If you "tunk" it in herring oil, ( don´t tell anybpdy I said that ! ) then you are appealing to all the senses.

 

Seatrout are primarily sight hunters, like most other salmonids, and can see very well indeed, even at night. Very dark or black flies are best at night, as colour is then unimportant, and a solid silhouette is usually of more use.

 

Mepps make some "aglia" bar spoon spinners, with bright orange and yellow blades. These are sometimes very good in coloured water. Use larger ones, ( one and a half inch upwards!) seatrout will take larger spinners, and indeed flies, with ease.

 

Most of my larger river fish ( I fish the sea as well), have been taken on lures up to four inches long.

 

Quite a simple but very effective tube fly is as follows.

 

Use a three inch tube. ( Cut down a Q-tip) flare the ends slightly using a clean lighter flame. ( Just hold the tube ends near the flame, not in it).

 

Start your 6/0 thread ( black or red ), a half inch before the tube head. Tie in some longish white hair on one side of the tube. So that it is about as long as the tube itself.Tie in some silver flash of the same length at both sides, tie in a short bunch of orange hair at the throat. Tie in some long brown or mottled ( Fox, squirrel etc ) on the back, so that it extends beyond the tube. Build up a nice head. Stick on some dolls eyes with movable pupils ( supermarket etc) using "superglue". When dry epoxy over the whole head, using five minute epoxy. Keep turning the fly in your fingers with the tube mounted on a needle etc, to stop the epoxy sagging or running.

 

This works very well for large browns as well, which often feed almost exclusively at night.

 

TL

MC

[Guest Graeme]

There doesn't appear to have been any mention of a sea-trout licence? I thought you had to be in possesion of a sea-trout licence to fish for them?I know in the past there have been problems with people taking fish from the Adur with nets. Personally, I would rather fish for the superb mullet which inhabit the Adur during the summer, now they fight!!

[Guest Mike Connor]

Originally posted by Graeme:

There doesn't appear to have been any mention of a sea-trout licence?

 

Excellent point. As I do not live in the UK, and am therefore not bound by some of it´s rather quaint reguations and ideas regarding fish and fisheries, I rather tend to forget that such things are required.

 

You are quite right about the mullet. Even more difficult to catch than the bloody seatrout though !

 

TL

MC

[Guest Mike Connor]

One of the oldest tricks for taking seatrout in coloured water, or when they are "taking short" is to put a maggot or a piece of worm on the fly hook. Vigorous casting tends to throw this off of course. So don´t cast!

 

TL

MC

[Guest Newt]

Originally posted by Mike Connor:

Use a three inch tube. ( Cut down a Q-tip) flare the ends slightly using a clean lighter flame. ( Just hold the tube ends near the flame, not in it).

 

Start your 6/0 thread ( black or red ), a half inch before the tube head.  Tie in some longish white hair on one side of the tube. So that it is about as long as the tube itself.Tie in some silver flash of the same length at both sides, tie in a short bunch of orange hair at the throat. Tie in some long brown or mottled ( Fox, squirrel etc ) on the back, so that it extends beyond the tube. Build up a nice head. Stick on some dolls eyes with movable pupils ( supermarket etc) using "superglue".  When dry epoxy over the whole head, using five minute epoxy. Keep turning the fly in your fingers with the tube mounted on a needle etc, to stop the epoxy sagging or running.

Mike - would a hook help this lure?

[Guest Mike Connor]

Originally posted by Newt:

Mike - would a hook help this lure?  

 

Tube flies are simply that, tubes on which a fly or lure is dressed. They are threaded on to the leader, and then a hook is tied to the end of the leader. This is usually held "in line" with a piece of valve rubber or similar which is placed over the rear end of the tube, and the hook shank and eye is pushed up into it.

 

The tube itself has no hook. This is a considerable advantage of tube flies, ( among others ). A damaged hook may be simply replaced. When a fish takes, the tube slides up the leader, robbing the fish of any chance of applying leverage to it, and also preventing it being damaged by the fishes teeth etc.

 

Tubes are a lot cheaper than hooks ( 1000 q-tips in a box, costs less than a dollar, and one can make several thousand tube flies from these, depending on size). Other tube materials may also be used. Aluminium or brass tubing etc etc.

 

"Mini-tubes" may be made from surgical catheter tubing. One may dress any fly on a tube, although they are especially good for large hairwing and similar lures. They are light and easy to cast, and they are very very effective for a whole range of fish.

 

Most of my pike flies are now dressed on tubes, and a fair number of my seatrout and salmon flies. I also use them for perch, zander, and a number of other fish.

 

TL

MC

[Guest Mike Connor]

If you use drilled lead ovals, ( or other metals, if lead happens to be forbidden where you fish), which are available from tackle shops in a range of sizes as legers, quite cheaply. Then you can make up some excellent mini-jigs, in the same way as you would dress tube flies.

 

These can be deadly for perch when ice-fishing, ( probably good for crappie etc as well),and are easy, quick, and cheap to make. They have practically all the advantages of tube flies.

 

They can also be cast using "normal" spinning gear, and fished "sink and draw" etc.

 

Use one of these tied with orange bucktail, and a red head, with a wisp of white, and a whisp of red material under the "throat", slid on to the reel line, and stopped with a swivel. Tie a foot of nylon to the swivel, and a normal hook to this. Put a worm on the hook in such a way that the rig revolves when retrieved. This is absolutely deadly for perch and zander.

 

Occasionally, green bucktail ( or any other hair or synthetic), or white or black may be the colours of the day.

 

Sometimes violet hair is absolutely deadly, and a fish a cast may be taken from a perch shoal. Even large solitary perch will chase this a long way, and it is a marvelous "searching" tool, for finding perch.

 

This does not always work though. It obviously depends on the light conditions at the depth being fished. I have done great execution with this rig on bright sunny days at depths of ten to twenty feet.

 

Use ordinary tube flies for slow sinkers, ( also often deadly for both perch and trout), one may also dress tubes with buoyant heads, and these are fished dead on the bottom using an ordinary weight. These are very good for zander.

 

TL

MC

[Guest Darrin Simpson]

Originally posted by Graeme:

There doesn't appear to have been any mention of a sea-trout licence? I thought you had to be in possesion of a sea-trout licence to fish for them?I know in the past there have been problems with people taking fish from the Adur with nets. Personally, I would rather fish for the superb mullet which inhabit the Adur during the summer, now they fight!!    

WELL GRAEME WHY ARE YOU SO WORRIED ABOUT A LICENCE I'M NOT FISHING UNTIL NEXT SUMMER. MULLET MAY BE HARD FIGHTING BUT THEY TASTE LIKE S**T COMPARED TO SEATROUT, MIGHT SEE YOU DOWN THERE NEXT SUMMER TAKECARE TL DARRIN