With the incredibly hot weather yesterday there wasn’t really much opportunity to get out on the river. The high temperatures starve the water of its oxygen content and puts massive pressure on the fish. However, around 5pm I noticed that the temperatures were starting to fall enough and the cloudless skies meant I might be able to get a couple of hours out on the club waters before the daylight gave way to night.
As I reached the shaded, woody shelters of beat C, the river suddenly came to life. I guess with it being so hot through the day, the fish hadn’t been feeding until the day started to draw in and cool.
It took the whole evening to find something they wanted to feed on and subsequently this was my only fish, but what a fish!!! A beautiful 18” Brown Trout that rose to a Tan Elkwing Caddis and didn’t want to give it up, one of the best Chalk Stream Tigers I’ve ever had.
Obviously being all the way down near the very limits of our beat on C I assumed it to be a true wildie, so I was very suprised to find a little red tag just behind the dorsal fin?!?! Unless ive missed something somewhere, I am pretty sure that beats A,B & C are still maintained as wild and unstocked?! So this means that either this fish has come all the way down from L&K, or has navigated its way all the way through from the other river system - which seems massively unlikely.
I like the concept that this fish has come down from K, especially when you consider some of the obsticals & non club affiliated waters it will have come through to get there! Hopefully the neighbouring club isnt using the same tags as us for stocking!
Makes you think about how much these fish navigate/migrate(?!?!) along the course of the river, could there be any scope for putting trakers into some of the stocked fish in the future? I would be fascinating to see their movements.
Great post Richard. I'm glad you managed to tempt activity in the heat. This is the second red tagged trout we've had reported as caught in the catch and release beats this year (the other was on beat M). I spoke with Mike B and we believe they have likely migrated the long way down from beats K/L. No other clubs are stocking on the Wylye with red tags this year (or last year).
We are going to have to think about our stocking policy if the stockies migrate this far.