it finally happened the americans have got to us we are one of the last brown trout waters left in lancs, but this could be in jeopardy due to the fact that members want longer seasons and bigger fish so this is the scenario we fish an extra 3 months but what damage could a plague of bows do to a well established (over 100 years river fed still water) brown water. please can you help me on this one because i am worried about breeding patterns etc any advice would be warmly recieved!!

You need to fight them at all cost's,Try to convince them of the glory of brown trout.

Jim

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The Fishermans Friend is the Flirty Fly,Fickle Food for Fleeting Fish.

Hi adipose

Are the browns stocked or naturals

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Two things to have in life - A good bed and a good pair of boots -and if you aren't in one you should be in t'other

Can't fertile stocked brown trout do more damage than sterile rainbows? But I think rainbows will readily feed on eggs at spawning time.

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Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

naturals, we stock them every couple of years but only with fingerlings and yearlings, so on the whole wild fish

If you can make contact with someone on the fisheries side of Yorkshire Water,http://www.yorkshirewater.com/recreation/?OBH=3744 your position sounds similar to Thruscross reservoir, which they have run as a brown trout fishery for the last few years. I've not personally fished it, but I know the background to how they have tried to develop it as a 'brown only' water.

Do the close season by-laws apply to stocked stillwaters for browns? I know the coarse season on stillwaters is different from rivers; has anyone followed this up?

If you have club members eager to extend their season, is there another lake under your control which could be stocked with rainbows with less detriment? I think it would be a shame to lose a 'brown only' water, as they are few and far between.

Anecdotal evidence and personal experience shows that an introduction of rainbows into a wild brown trout water usually results in the browns disappearing into the depths and the rainbows taking over.

The attraction of (unaturally) big fish is too much for some and is short sighted. Lots of alternative fishing to be done close season. I fear the worst for you adiposefin, what a waste if it happens. Who does the club lease the water from ? if anyone, a plea to them perhaps.

If you have club members eager to extend their season, is there another lake under your control which could be stocked with rainbows with less detriment? I think it would be a shame to lose a 'brown only' water, as they are few and far between.

Good shout ENB


PPS

So they are stocked then?

Don't let them put them in. I used to be in a club and we had a spring fed lake, which we stocked. Most of our stocking was fingerling browns. But every year we had to please the fishmongers and stock a few thousand 1.5lb rainbows. When the lake opened it was dam hard to catch a brown until the rainbows were removed. The club aloud bait fishing from the shore and most of the big browns were taken on worms. When the bows were gone later in the season only then would you catch the good browns, which grew quite large,14lb being the biggest to come out of the lake. If you can keep the fishery brown only as god knows there are enough rainbow fisheries around.
Unfortunately with clubs you always seem to pick up shortsighted,greedy anglers ( if you could call them anglers ) who only want to catch a bag of fat easy caught fish. Keep up the fight, good luck.
Tight Lines
Trout Hunter

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Trout,great to hunt,greater to release.

Hi' Sam, I hope common sense prevails, and that the natural condition is maintained. Money doesn't just talk, it blows a nasty raspberry at times!! good luck with any protests that are forth coming. TerryC