Hi all,

Just thought I'd draw everyone's attention to the Celtic Sea Trout Programme. Sample kits are available for anglers to collect and document fish scales, weight, length etc.

Got my kit today from Foxons. I'd just like to encourage everyone else to try and obtain a sampling kit and spare a little time completing the relevant information.

Thanks.

Sorry if this has already been posted.

I'm a little concerned about one aspect of the document ....

4. Background

.......................................
.....................................

" However, there are major unanswered questions in the understanding of sea trout, namely:

* where do they go at sea .............."

I seem to recall a similar question - 'where do they go at sea' - being asked about Atlantic Salmon back in the 1960s/70s.
When the answer was found the commercial trawlers moved into the area and systematically decimated the fish on their maritime feeding grounds.

It would be ironic if a project set up to investigate Seatrout stocks with an aim to improve them resulted in a similar situation.

I wonder what, if any, safeguards have been put in place to ensure that the knowledge, should an answer be found, will not be made available to the public at large and to commercial concerns?


Dave.

I did think that also Dave. Surely lessons have been learned though.? Least I bloody hope so.

Apparently Nigel Milner is short of scale samples for the 2010 season so please can you make an effort to collect some and submit them in what remains of the season.

__________________
“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