My Record Wild brown trout from the TWEED

[lutra]

This is my lifetime best Wild brown trout

all 7lb 5 oz of this beauty

she was 67 cm long with a 37 cm girth

She was caught on a spinner in the TWEED

Also she had 6 part digested trout inside her

a Real CANNIBAL

Cracking fish. Nice one cannibalspinners.

 

Personally I don't think taking a fish of that size and age will have any impact on the waters ability to produce more fish like it in the future. Only I think seven 1 pounders would have made better eating.

[danny2391]

Hi Danny

 

I agree with your first line, but I guess it depends on what your intentions are in the first place, personally I get a buzz in seeing the fish swim off not much the worse for it's capture, but I am of the majority, that is not unique.

 

I have read your last sentence and I am unsure what you mean you might want to clarify.

 

Surely are intention is to catch fish??? Either for the sport or the table, and like you I get the same feeling seeing 99.9% of my fish swim safely away!

But I have no worries in despatching fish for eating I quite recently despatched a badly hooked lure caught pike (swallowed a small perch lure} this decision was made after several minutes trying to revive the fish but to no avail !

 

{admin note: comment removed.}

Edited December 20, 2011 by Newt
overly rude remark

[cannibalspinners]

Personally I think the thread was started as a bit of a wind up, well we bit, the latest offering from the OP rather illustrates that point I think.

 

As I said..

 

Seasons Greetings and all that.

The thread was no wind up

i think people like to see specimen fish

dead or alive

i catch hundreds of trout every year

( All wild river trout )

some years i take none for the table

some years i may take as many as 10

The thing is ,I think they taste Great

i have always eaten trout

& i think i always will

[Steve Walker]

I can imagine one scenario in which a piker might release a ruffe - it involves groping around in a shared livebait bucket, a howl of pain and "Who put that f****** spiky thing in the bucket?", followed by a ruffe tracing a graceful parabolic arc into the lake

 

Ruffe are odd little fish, though. I haven't caught one since I was a boy, but in the one pond where they did occur they were extremely numerous and very hard to avoid. Small and drab for livebaits, but then perhaps we are assuming that the hypothetical ruffe-spreader actually knew what he was doing. I expect that a bucket of ruffe would nicely complement 6lb line, snap tackle, a Fishing Gazette bung and perhaps a gag and a gaff for good measure.

 

It's an emotive subject and nobody wants the rap for environmental vandalism laid at their door - although if someone was releasing roach, ruffe and dace into Bassenthwaite in the late 80's and early 90's, I don't see that the guilt for that attaches to any angler but the perpetrator, we aren't collectively guilty as anglers or pike anglers or users of livebait or whatever. We'll never know how these introductions happened, and speculation that it was pike anglers is just that - speculation. Could just as well have been someone with a bucket of mixed coarse fish he fancied catching. It doesn't make any difference, the horse is well out of the stable and bolted. It doesn't make any difference to policy, of course one should not be using species which don't occur in a given waterbody as livebaits in it, but we all knew that already.

[Emma two]

IIt's an emotive subject and nobody wants the rap for environmental vandalism laid at their door - although if someone was releasing roach, ruffe and dace into Bassenthwaite in the late 80's and early 90's,

 

The theory is that they were put in earlier than that (the 60s perhaps) and took a few decades to build up their population. I spend so much time in and around that lake as a child. fishing with rods, nets and little traps, we never saw a ruffe (I saw my first on ever in the Hohenzollern canal in Berlin circa 1980.) until I found a dead one washed up on the shore only a few years ago.

[Steve Walker]

Quite possible, Emma, they weren't recorded until the late 80's / early 90's but it's anyone's guess how long it took the populations to explode. Fish can be extremely prolific. It's also the case that the limnology was changing at the same time, with eutrophication tilting the balance towards the intruders.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Steve Walker

[Emma two]

. It's also the case that the limnogy was changing at the same time, with eutrophication tilting the balance towards the intruders.

 

 

They are variables which have not been overlooked and the eutrophication has been noted, nutrients from fertilizers being one source and significantly output from Keswick water treatment plant which lies upstream (through linking rivers). The impacts for the angler are the population explosions of ruffe, roach (apparently there was always a background population there) and dace. A smaller average size of pike, its interesting that we are asked to put in a catch return including a photograph, weight and measured length of all pike caught. I know that there are some who would not take part in this fully, believing that they would be risking the fish's wellbeing by taking all those measurements, I 'guestimate' the weight of any fish which appears to be clearly under 10lbs, dont always measure the length, but always photograph and submit my returns.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Emma two

[Steve Walker]

They are variables which have not been overlooked and the eutrophication has been noted, nutrients from fertilizers being one source and significantly output from Keswick water treatment plant which lies upstream (through linking rivers).

 

Indeed - it raises the question of whether or not tiny, localised populations existed for a long time before conditions became amenable to their spread. I did know the people doing the survey work on Bassenthwaite - Ian Winfield was one of my PhD supervisors, and I shared my office with Janice Fletcher - but I had very little involvement in that side of things beyond a bit of helping out, and only have a sketchy knowledge of their findings. I do have an unpleasant memory of helping empty some survey nets from Bassenthwaite - trying to unpick ruffe from where they had been twisted into the mesh and chewed into a manky, spiky pulp by eels

[cannibalspinners]

Good for you, but I will take issue with you that you think ''people like to see specimen fish dead or alive'' Of course there was a time when we used to put our prize catches in glass cases to be gawped at for posterity, now thankfully we have a more enlightened view, well almost.

You don't have too look very far to find many anglers advocating catch and release, especially native brown trout, I think that is a positive message, however I understand that it is your right to kill for food if you insist, but thankfully the majority of anglers don't.

Whilst food is still relatively cheap, and we are not a starving nation, I see no need to take wild fish for the table, but of course taking fish by some of out EE brothers is very much what they do, and couldn't give a toss about the long term effect on our stocks, after all it's not there country is it?

Well I care, how about you?

I will not be drawn in to an arguement

i have for nearly 40 years eaten trout

it is a much better food source than we have

in todays mass produced supermarket

junk food

have you eaten fish from a supermarket recently ?

If taking fish for the table was banned

then i would respect it

but as it is not

then i will exercise my right to eat a small

percentage of my catch

Brown trout in scotland are not rare

they can be caught in almost any water way

any day of the year if the season allowed

on the tweed catchment area

nearly everyone imeet on the riverside

takes some trout home for tea

1 small question , Have you ever eaten a trout you have caught

if not take it from me

they are a Fantastic taste

especially when grilled with butter

[Emma two]

Indeed - it raises the question of whether or not tiny, localised populations existed for a long time before conditions became amenable to their spread. I did know the people doing the survey work on Bassenthwaite - Ian Winfield was one of my PhD supervisors, and I shared my office with Janice Fletcher - but I had very little involvement in that side of things beyond a bit of helping out, and only have a sketchy knowledge of their findings. I do have an unpleasant memory of helping empty some survey nets from Bassenthwaite - trying to unpick ruffe from where they had been twisted into the mesh and chewed into a manky, spiky pulp by eels

 

I have only met Ian Winfield once,(you will have perhaps seen him cited in my recent posts) when he presented the findings to date at a meeting held in the sailing club bar. There were around 60 anglers present and I enjoyed the way he dealt with their questions and suggestions as to why the size and quality of the pike was deteriorating, which ranged from short wire traces, cormarants, the dwindling migratory fish numbers to Eastern Europeans. One thing he did say was that if some died as a result of poor handling or a few were taken for eating that it would make no measurable difference to the overall long term population. I am firmly with the 'other variables' school of thought, for if eatin and bad handling were to blame then pike in this erea anyway would have become extinct long before I was born.