Why don't we get more big trout in coarse waters?

[Vagabond]

in winter i have dead baited to round about 70 foot

& caught pike ,So they too lie deep

 

Thanks for that - bang goes one hypothesis

Have you seen the size of the head on a large ferox trout

 

Even my 7lb+ River brown trout had a head on it like a pit bull

 

Yes, I have caught a ferox or two. That big blunt head is for a purpose - they charge their prey, butt it and stun it, then turn and swallow it. (Big bass do much the same)

 

If using spun dead baits, you need plenty of hooks, and to bind the flight to the bait with copper wire.

 

Fail to do that properly, and the charge of the ferox will knock your dead bait clean off the spinning flight, and the trout will then scoop the bait up and be gone for ever !

[Anderoo]

Thanks for that - bang goes one hypothesis

 

 

Yes, I have caught a ferox or two. That big blunt head is for a purpose - they charge their prey, butt it and stun it, then turn and swallow it. (Big bass do much the same)

 

If using spun dead baits, you need plenty of hooks, and to bind the flight to the bait with copper wire.

 

Fail to do that properly, and the charge of the ferox will knock your dead bait clean off the spinning flight, and the trout will then scoop the bait up and be gone for ever !

 

Off topic but a related question - if you were lure fishing for our sea bass, I guess you would need to take this headbutting attack into account when deciding when to strike?

[cannibalspinners]

Off topic but a related question - if you were lure fishing for our sea bass, I guess you would need to take this headbutting attack into account when deciding when to strike?

I would expect the fish to be already hooked before you had time to react

[Vagabond]

Off topic but a related question - if you were lure fishing for our sea bass, I guess you would need to take this headbutting attack into account when deciding when to strike?

When it has happened to me, the speed with which the "take" follows the "knock" is too fast for a strike, and the fish hooks itself (or not!) anyway.

 

Other fish that do similar things include tiger-fish and dorado. It happens very fast indeed - far faster, for example than a sailfish or marlin hitting the bait with its bill and then swallowing it.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Vagabond

[davedave]

This is a really interesting topic. On local (somerset) rivers they never go above about 2lb, but are fairly common and often appear in matches.

Edited December 20, 2011 by davedave

[chesters1]

This is really interesting actually, on local (somerset) rivers they never go above about 2lb, but are fairly common and often appear in matches.

 

perhaps they never get really big because they are eaten before they do by anglers pleased with the catch,not hard things to catch on chunks of bread my kids used to bring carrier bags home with the damn things in much to the delight of the fluff chuckers on the other bank ,with the continual restocking of rainbows i expect any browns are eaten young or simply bullied out of the area ,only ever caught one small brownie in that area after a flood so i guess it came downstream from a less "managed" environment

 

the rivers are coarse rivers they all are but "management" tends to remove the coarse fish to favour the trout ,where i am its strangely the opposite and considered a trout stream and the EA remove the abundant course fish but return the trout because bigwigs pay to catch them

 

if like here there is a fluff chucking club you will get trout in coarse areas by migration but on the trout "sections" you will get less coarse fish by removal so you can end up with one stretch trout with a few coarse fish bordered by course stretches with a few trout ,ideally i expect to fluff chuckers the two would never meet ,in my opnion they can keep their blooming trout

Edited December 20, 2011 by chesters1

[Dick Dastardly]

I think Dave has touched on the real reason and thats simply that the majority of the waters that "could/should" have a head of Ferrox simply dont have the natural Brown Trout to start with simple as that!

 

Ive had a lot of experience pike fishing on big southern trout reservoirs. I have caught a few big "over wintered" Rainbows whilst piking and the odd big Brown (my mate caught one that would have been a record if taken in season that waswell documented in the press) BUT none of these (IMO) were Ferrox they were all simply fish that had grown huge feeding on pellet that fell through from the growing on pens under/around which they had made their home. Yes they did come to lures and livebaits and Im sure they did take fish when the oportunity arose but the pelletswere still their main food source.

 

I dont know 100% if farm reared Browns do not have the genetic ability to turn Ferrox or not (in my opinion Ferrox isnt just size but the entire change of life style that enables them to reach bigger sizes) but doubt from what we see they have. Yes they certainly live longer than the majority of farm reared Rainbows but thats not necessarily the same thing is it.

 

Ive seen "Ferrox" in most waters that have natural Brownies though,regardless of depth,char,still or running water. And these are waters all over the country not just Scotland.

 

Pike at depth? well I very rarely fish much over 50' for pike (this is fishing at that depth not just over it) as Ive not found it that productive but they do sometimes go that deep and I have caught a few even deeper whilst fishing for Ferrox but very rarely.I used to dismiss the 30' contour theorey as an old wives tale having had a few pike very much deeper but in reflection I think as a "general rule of thumb" its not to far off.

 

I dont know if Ferrox 80 still exist? If they do it might be worth contacting them for their veiws.

[Emma two]

Warning some scientific content. If that version of ‘truth’ (or truths generally offend you, then please do not read on)[/u

 

]Perhaps it's not that we don' get big trout in ‘coarse’ waters at all, it might be a question of definition, what and how do we define a coarse fishery? One which holds coarse fish of course! But is it really that simple. Lots of the talk in here advances from a few essential and accepted ‘truths’, these seem to be based around a set type of water in a set part of the country. The large water of our isles the Cumbrian lakes & Scottish lochs were formed during the last ice age, flooded valleys, long narrow and significantly very deep

Our largest trout consistently come from these large waters. Two of the species which we know have inhabited these waters have had their lives intertwined, the ferox trout and the char. For the former preys eagerly upon the latter.

 

Perhaps it’s because the trout who live at relatively extreme depths need to became fish feeders, and so grow in size, having to consume fish in the absence of much else in the way of protein because there is nothing else much down there. They don’t spawn in the deep but leave the lakes to run the spawning becks to breed, and that is the time for literally doubting what ones eyes show to be there! The ferox breed together, away from other trout, they don’t run to breed every year, and they live longer then ordinary brownies, and they and switch to a fish only diet very quickly allowing for faster growth than a ordinary trout and so outgrow them even when they are in even in optimum conditions, for example the classic limestone Lough. I am with the theory that ferox are not just big brownies gone bad, but a species in their own right.

 

when we pick up say a 2lber when piking are we looking at a small ferox or a decent sized brownie who happens to live in a lake.

 

So maybe the trout who share a water with coarse fish, who are living in a very different environment (to the ferox) have only some individuals who manage to reach a large size by random opportunist feeding, they may turn to almost exclusive fish feeding once they grow a bit, but the ferox has been a fish feeder since it was a parr, the ferox are only found in a few waters, one could argue that some of them at least are coarse fisheries too, for example you can catch perch and pike (coarse fish) in Loch Awe, but also a record (ferox) trout. So perhaps its not really accurate to ask, Why don't we get more big trout in coarse waters?

Edited December 20, 2011 by Emma two

[arbocop]

The answer is there isn't any reason why not, in theory, but in reality I think that the answer is evolution. Biologically speaking, all species want to reproduce themselves, and to do that they want to live as long as possible. Therefore, trout tend to get big and develop the tendncnies they have evolved in the fisheries best suited to support them and vice-versa.

 

Coarse fisheries - in general - have become coarse fisheries because they naturally contain and support healthy stocks of coarse fish that are worth catching. Trout fisheries (in general) tend to be good for trout because they naturally contain and support healthy stocks of game fish, typically trout. 60 million years of evolution in fish (I guessed) has adapted them to the habitats they occupy.

 

We may create fisheries, but they tend to be in lowland areas and tend to be shallow and warm and if present, the trout would normally take second place to coarse fish and there numbers would be lower. Exceptions such as deep reservoirs which held both coarse and game would support ferox trout, but only a small proportion of trout would turn to becoming ferox, and unless they held a sustaining natural head of fish there would not be sufficient head of self sustaining fish to have the small proportion of fish becioming ferox.. . In a trout fishery the trout would probably be fished out,most would be caught and as most fisheries permit removal they would be removed.

 

Anyway, I haven't finished, but my missus says I have to get off the computer so she can do her MA, so I'm off....

[Emma two]

The answer is there isn't any reason why not, in theory, but in reality I think that the answer is evolution. Biologically speaking, all species want to reproduce themselves, and to do that they want to live as long as possible. Therefore, trout tend to get big and develop the tendncnies they have evolved in the fisheries best suited to support them and vice-versa.

 

Coarse fisheries - in general - have become coarse fisheries because they naturally contain and support healthy stocks of coarse fish that are worth catching. Trout fisheries (in general) tend to be good for trout because they naturally contain and support healthy stocks of game fish, typically trout. 60 million years of evolution in fish (I guessed) has adapted them to the habitats they occupy.

 

We may create fisheries, but they tend to be in lowland areas and tend to be shallow and warm and if present, the trout would normally take second place to coarse fish and there numbers would be lower. Exceptions such as deep reservoirs which held both coarse and game would support ferox trout, but only a small proportion of trout would turn to becoming ferox, and unless they held a sustaining natural head of fish there would not be sufficient head of self sustaining fish to have the small proportion of fish becioming ferox.. . In a trout fishery the trout would probably be fished out,most would be caught and as most fisheries permit removal they would be removed.

 

Anyway, I haven't finished, but my missus says I have to get off the computer so she can do her MA, so I'm off....

 

 

More or less what I said, (I think), but I don't believe that trout 'turn' ferox they either (genetically) are or are not.