I am fishing the lochs of North West Scotland in early July - I would be very grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of a guide to recognising male as opposed to female finnock.

Thanks for any help.

Palakona

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Ain't just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?

a good shake and if theirs a rattle well you know then

Why do you need to differentiate between the two?
Not aware of a visual indication as to what is male or female.

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It is in truth not glory,nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting,but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with his life.(Declaration of Arbroath, 1320)

Those I catch are invariably female... I'm not sure of the male:female ratio where you're going though.

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Save the softmouth trout

i still think mine was the more accurate and more interesting answer.......

Well how do you know this? That's what the OP is asking.

As far as I'm aware there are no visual indicators on sex until the fish reaches the onset of sexual maturation. ie; There is no way of telling.

some work done on Loch Maree a few yrs back, out of 48 seatrout caught only 5 were males, it might help to answer your query,easker1

Once again, how do you know this?

I think it is fairly well established that in most areas sea trout runs contain a higher percentage of females than males, especially early in the season. Certainly among the ones I have kept female have outnumbered the males.
I don't think you can tell just by looking at it what sex a finnock is, you have to cut it open. I'm not sure that will go down too well anywhere in the Northwest these days!
More mature fish are easier to spot, previous spawners can be fairly obvious as the cocks generally have longer heads and even keep the kype all year round.


Andy

Exactly. According to this thread there's a great number of young sea trout being chapped for identification. Either that or people are talking mince.

Perhaps this may have something to do with the west coast decline?