I fished my one of my regular haunts on the Itchen today, it was lovely day, really cold but sunny and bright...

I tied on the ubiquitous pink czech nymph and started fishing had a couple of grayling of around 10 ounces... about an hour in a loop of line got caught around the reel as i looked up from untangling it my line had been taken further down stream than i had been letting the drift carry on for, i was about to lift off my bite indicator made a very definate stab forward, i lifted and the line went VERY solid, i thought i had hooked up on the bottom to start but then something took off, it didnt feel like a Grayling, it also wouldnt come to the surface , the grayling where i fish tend to come to the surface and flap about alot, this had its head down and had dug its heels in good and proper, my poor little 3wt was bent down to the handle. well after a good scrap i won some line and got a glimpse of an outline... its a brownie i thought, the fish also caught sight of me and tore off again, i steered it round anf took a little more line, as it broke the surface and the sun caught its flank i got a big flash of silver not bronze and gold.... a sea trout by my reckoning, never had trout this silver on the itchen, too far up river to be slob... either way it scrapped like a pit bull and livened up an otherwise lean day



it was around 18-20 inches long

just for comparison a typical brownie from the same stretch

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Pity we can't see the tail a bit better, some of our stocked browns up in this neck of the woods look a bit like that one.

Nice fish

Cheers
Mike

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At the heart of your fly fishing lies a good fly line! ...... www.flylineshop.com

Why-ever shouldn't she be a slob? On her way home after spawning duties on the redds.

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Save the softmouth trout

Great catch Icky.

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[COLOR="Blue"]"A fish seen is a fish nearly caught"[/COLOR]

Thanks loopy... it was deffo a surprise

See what you are saying bout a decending Slob, post spawn, never really thought about that, though i have to say it was VERY silver and all of the slob pics i have seen have been more like big browns... either way it was a cracking fish.

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Looks a bit kelty to me but I reckon it's a sea trout or a slob trout.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

I see a kelt too ......and the timing is right for a mending kelt

I've just had a pic of a nice 3-4lb kelt from one of our local rivers iccy

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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

cracking fish!!!

regards
czechnymphing

Personally, i'd bet the mortgage that that is one of the early season stock brownies. Winter condition but getting back into shape. Just my penneth but that's what i'd guess. I fished the Lower Itchen Fishery on a season rod, and had a few fish like this in the very early season.