FISHING QUERIES

What's a Stank?

Q. While fishing for trout in Perthshire last summer, the hotel owner advised me that one particular loch was a "stank" and therefore was never poached. I imagined that the name related to some form of noxious odour rising from the water and gave the loch a wide berth. A friend who fished it reported that, to the contrary, the water was perfectly fresh and was well stocked with hard fighting brown trout. Can you cast any light on the term "stank" and explain why poachers would not go there?

A. Although there is no general public right to fish for brown trout in Scotland, it is not normally a criminal offence to do so. The riparian owner of a water would require to take out an interdict (court order) to prevent a poacher from fishing for trout on his water and that interdict would unfortunately be specific both as to the person it prohibited from fishing and the place named in the order. This situation exists because brown trout, being an indigenous breeding species, are not deemed to be the property of the water owner.

The situation is different in a stank. This term, for which I know no English equivalent, refers to a loch which has no inlet streams into which trout can pass for spawning purposes. Because trout cannot breed in such a water, it can therefore be concluded that any which are present must have been artificially stocked and are, in consequence, the property of the owner.

Fishing in a stank is thereby a criminal offence and a very unattractive proposition for the poaching fraternity. Incidentally, because rainbow trout do not breed in the wild in Scotland, they are always someone's property and anyone caught fishing for them will be guilty of attempted theft.

Separate Species?

Q. When I was fishing in eastern Canada I was told that their sea trout were simply ordinary brook trout which had adopted a migratory lifestyle. When I described our British sea-trout to my guide, he suggested that they would be sea-run brownies rather than a separate species. I always thought that sea-trout were more closely related to the Atlantic salmon than to brown trout. Can you elucidate please?

A. Your Canadian guide was absolutely right. Our sea-trout is generally regarded as being the same species as the brown trout although there may be some slight genetic difference which predisposes some fish to migratory habits. Seagoing brownies are found in rivers all along the European coast from Spain northwards.

One common test used to determine whether two apparently different fish are, in fact, the same species is to investigate whether hybrids are fertile or infertile. Hybrids between brown trout and salmon, for example, are infertile whereas the progeny of brown trout and sea-trout are completely fertile. Those progeny, incidentally, may adopt either migratory or sedentary habits.

Even more telling is the fact that the offspring arising from the mating of two brown trout may, on occasion become migratory and, conversely, the fry produced by the pairing of two sea-trout can live their entire lives in fresh water.

By the way, the American steelhead is a rainbow trout which has been to the sea and then returned to the river of its birth. It can be seen, therefore, that migratory habits amongst a proportion of the population is quite a common phenomenon amongst several species of trout.

Dry Fly Takes

Q. After reading an article in an angling magazine, I decided to try dry fly fishing for rainbow trout in my local lake. When using a rough brown emerger I was able to attract a lot of attention from the trout but I succeeded in hooking only about one in ten fish which rose to my fly. What am I doing wrong?

A. Without having watched you fish, I cannot be sure. A likely explanation, however, is that you are striking too quickly when you see the fish rise. A trout taking a moving wet fly or a stripped lure will lunge at the fly and virtually hook itself. Because the trout is moving rapidly, it is difficult to pull the fly away from it.

When fishing a dry fly on stillwaters, in contrast, the artificial fly is stationary and the trout can take it at a leisurely pace. Ideally you want to delay your strike until the fish has turned on the fly and is taking it down, away from the surface. As you may already have discovered, this is much easier said than done and I am frequently guilty of exactly the same problem as you appear to be experiencing.

Salmon anglers face the same difficulty and one ghillie of my acquaintance advises his clients to light a cigarette before tightening into a fish. This might be a bit extreme when trout fishing but certainly a count from one to four before striking seems to be about right. In the excitement of the moment, it is very easy to forget to count!

Keeper's Device

Q. My father was a river keeper before the war and always attached floating planks of wood to posts in mid-stream to encourage fly life. I have never seen this done since that time and I now wonder if my memory is playing tricks on me. Have you ever heard of this practice?

A. You almost had me stumped with this one but, eventually, I found a reference to "fly boards" in "The Angler's Encyclopedia" by Colin Willock. It appears that it was the practice to moor a board to a bridge or to a post to increase fly breeding success on some rivers. Members of the important ephemerid family (eg olives and mayflies) would lay their eggs on the board where they would be safe from predation by caddis larvae which, it would seem, cannot crawl along the wire mooring to eat the eggs.

Sunday Sport

Q. I have heard that the game laws are different in England and Scotland and that it is permissible to fish for salmon and trout and shoot grouse, pheasant and ducks on Sundays in Scotland. Is this correct?

A. The situation is rather more complex than that I am afraid. Firstly, there is no reason, other than the susceptibilities of the Lord's Day Observance Society, why you should not fish for trout on a Sunday in Scotland. Fishing for migratory salmonoids (salmon and sea-trout) is, however, prohibited. When you consider that brown trout and sea-trout are the same species, the distinction is rather absurd.

As far as game birds and wildfowl are concerned, the position is even stranger. Whereas one can shoot ducks and geese in many English counties on Sundays, you cannot shoot them anywhere in Scotland. With game birds such as pheasant and grouse the reverse is true - they must not be shot on Sundays in England and Wales but can legally be killed on the Sabbath north of the border. I should add, however, that it is not the practice to do so and, in most Scottish localities, any Sunday shooting would be frowned upon.

Cane or Carbon?

Q. For the past 10 years I have used a 15-foot Bruce & Walker carbon rod for most of my . salmon fishing on large rivers. Now I have inherited a beautiful split cane rod of the same length and I am sorely tempted to use it instead of my trusty carbon model. What is the advantage of cane over carbon?

A. I will stand accused of being an absolute Philistine but, in all honesty, I know of no advantage as far as performance is concerned. I do appreciate that split cane rods have their loyal devotees and I can readily accept that there is an aesthetic quality about using any tool which has been hand-crafted. On the other hand, your carbon rod is likely to be only half the weight of a cane rod and is probably much more powerful. If you fish rivers where Spey casting is necessary, then I would guess that your Bruce & Walker will out-perform the cane rod by a large margin.

Having said all that, please do give the old rod an outing or two - even for a short spell in the middle of the day. Only you can ultimately decide which rod you prefer using. I suspect that your cane rod may have a high value from a collector's viewpoint so please do insure it adequately before using it in earnest.

Immature Fish?

Q. I have always understood that a grilse is an immature salmon which returns to fresh water before it is in breeding condition. A recent television documentary suggested that grilse as small as 3 lbs were capable of breeding. Now I am confused. To make matters worse, I read that in Nova Scotia it is only grilse which can be killed. Surely this lends weight to the theory that they are immature and cannot breed.

A. Your initial understanding is very commonly held amongst anglers but is, I am afraid, quite erroneous. A grilse is a salmon which has returned to its river after only one winter at sea. A "real" salmon has spent two or more winters at sea and is, as a result, much larger when it re-enters freshwater. Both grilse and salmon are sexually mature and can breed perfectly well. Obviously a 15 lb fish will produce many more eggs than a 5 lb grilse but the fertilised eggs from the small fish will be just as productive as from the larger salmon.

The reason for the Canadian rule is two-fold. Firstly, as I have just mentioned, the bigger fish will produce more offspring and should logically be the ones which are spared. Secondly, there is some evidence that fish which breed as grilse produce progeny which are likewise predisposed to spend only one winter at sea and return to the river as grilse in due course. If river management is aimed at producing good runs of big fish, it makes sense to keep the grilse and return the 2+ sea winter fish.

Incidentally, the same logic can be applied to the safe return of kelts if they happen to be caught. Very few salmon actually survive to return to the sea and then re-enter the river after another one or two sea winters for a second spawning. Those which do will be very large fish with enormous spawning potential and they may just conceivably harbour a genetic factor which favours repeat spawning cycles.