Wintle’s World of Angling – Coarse or Game?

Mark Wintle, an angler for thirty-five years, is on a quest to discover and bring to you the magic of fishing. Previously heavily involved with match fishing he now fishes for the sheer fun of it. With an open and enquiring mind, each week Mark will bring to you articles on fishing different rivers, different methods and what makes rivers, and occasionally stillwaters, tick. Add to this a mixed bag of articles on catching big fish; tackle design, angling politics and a few surprises.

Are you stuck in a rut fishing the same swim every week? Do you dare to try something different and see a whole new world of angling open up? Yes? Then read Mark Wintle’s regular column.

Having ruffled a few feathers with my criticisms of the so called catch of the millennium record Norwich ‘Seatrout’ that in my view was probably a salmon, it’s time to explain some of the differences that having game fish in your river can make to your fishing. Those that think a fantastic run of salmon in their local coarse fishing river would be a bonus, will, I hope, think again.

This article is going to be a bit of a mixed bag but bear with me and we might get fewer examples of salmon hailed as ‘seatrout’, and a better understanding of just how complex things can be when you mix coarse and game fish.

The Frome in Dorset, a Game River (click for bigger picture)

All of my local rivers have been or still are game fisheries. The ‘has been’ is the Dorset Stour which still has a few game fish but not enough to make it a viable game fishery anymore (mid fifties salmon returns were circa 100, compared to zero now). The Avon, certainly from Salisbury downstream is much less of a game fishery than it once was but some stretches remain predominantly game fisheries. The Dorset Frome is almost entirely a game river despite a massive decline in salmon catches, and even the ‘free’ water at Wareham has restrictions designed to protect the game fish, even if no game fishing takes place on that stretch. The Piddle and Allen are entirely game waters, as are the Test and Itchen.

It is vital to understand what the classification means to how the fish in the water are treated. Now that the Dorset Stour is almost entirely a coarse fishery the coarse fish get the same protection as they would on the Thames but the rivers that have designated game fisheries operate under different rules.

It works like this. The salmon has top protection. The methods allowed, seasons, fishing times, and other regulations are all geared towards total protection of the salmon. Even catch and release is far more tightly regulated than how we handle coarse fish. Catch a salmon out of season or on the wrong method, and the law is clear. It must be returned immediately, no weighing, photography only of the fish being returned. The guideline is 30 seconds, maximum one minute, and that also applies to all salmon that are going to be returned.

Next come trout; there have been strenuous efforts to preserve wild trout and improve their habitat. But the truth is that on the major trout stretches of the Kennet, Avon, Frome, Test etc, there has been a heavy reliance on stocked fish for many years, and therefore what happens to the stocked fish over the winter is less of a concern than to a fishery trying to rely on natural regeneration.

Mark returns a kelt to the Hant’s Avon (click for bigger picture)

In a mixed fishery where game fish are preserved, coarse fish have little protection. Catch one out of season and there is nothing to protect that fish. In theory the fish are supposed to be put back but it is possible to get dispensation to remove the coarse fish by whatever means is required. I can remember finding pike that had been slung up the bank; these anglers never thought about the consequences of their actions, coarse fish were vermin and that was that. This is why we used to see pictures like the one of the out of season 16lb barbel caught at Ibsley 40 years ago; it was dead, having been killed after being foul-hooked. Yet no-one batted an eyelid. On that same water today such treatment of a barbel would be condemned, and rightly so.

So in the South West we still have a multitude of strict rules that are biased in favour of salmon. These rules probably don’t even exist in some regions hence people expressing surprise about them.

How come coarse anglers get near the game fisheries?

So how did we coarse anglers get on these hallowed waters in the first place? Well, it wasn’t because the riparian owners needed the money, not originally at least. My own club has been fishing parts of the Frome in the late autumn and winter for over fifty years, and for many years it was for a peppercorn rent. We got on there through careful negotiation, acceptance of a short season of four months, acceptance of rules like all pike must be killed, and by taking great care never to upset those that were paying substantially more for their fishing than us (or at least being cunning enough not to broadcast what we were catching). What that meant was that we only got access after the end of the salmon season, originally from the 1st of October, later from the 1st November when the seatrout season was extended, but at least we got some fishing. Other rivers allowed those able to persuade a friendly keeper to go and thin out the grayling.

On the Avon it was slightly more complex. When I started fishing the Avon thirty years ago it opened on the 1st August. Salmon fishing didn’t finish until the end of September, and what that meant is that when you were happily ensconced in a glide trotting for dace or legering for barbel, and a salmon angler came along, you had to stand back whilst the salmon angler worked through your swim, regardless of the effect on your fishing. Those days have gone, and the salmon anglers have to work around the coarse anglers nowadays. What is also worth remembering is that the start of the season changed a few times, though the 1st August was the most usual one. Some years we got pushed back to 1st September, but eventually the decline in the salmon fishing and a new regime got the start of coarse fishing to 16th June or 1st July.

So why did/do the coarse fishermen get the rough end of the deal? Money and influence, that’s why. The game anglers paid far more for their fishing and still do. What’s more they seem to be well represented on fishery advisory committees in these parts which is why we often got treated badly. Forty years ago, in Avon and Dorset, it was observed that although a coarse angler paid far less for his license, sheer weight of numbers meant that half the fishery budget came from coarse anglers yet 90% of the budget got spent on improving salmon angling. Similarly, how many millions were wasted on the Thames and elsewhere in attempting to bring back salmon? Far too much that should have been used better in improving the coarse fish habitat.

So, the coarse angler gets his fishing if he is lucky when the game angler has finished and his license money is often wasted on futile attempts to improve salmon fishing. And when it comes to clout the salmon anglers have it in spades.

Overall, on a game fishery, even where there is some winter coarse fishing it is usually the case that at least 90% of the income comes from game anglers. Check out the day ticket prices on some of the Hampshire and Wiltshire waters; even though a day’s grayling fishing can cost up to £ 20, the trout fishing can cost up to £ 500. And he who pays the piper calls the tune.

So just for a minute imagine that the Trent started to sustain a major run of salmon. The nature of the Trent is similar to the Severn in that you don’t have holding pools in the strict sense of the term so areas below weirs are the next best thing (Diglis on the Severn is a good example). But the fishing is owned by the big associations you retort. That is probably true. What happens when a salmon syndicate offers three times what the entire association is raising from its coarse fishing just to have exclusive use of the ten pegs below a weir (Hazelford) that is now a prime salmon holding pool? Here is financial survival for the owning club, and it can be a very hard decision to turn away such an offer. These are people that will pay ten or even twenty times what a barbel syndicate would be willing to pay. As for trotting your bread flake next to the salmon angler casting his fly; they want exclusive use, ie, excluding YOU.

Seatrout are the odd fish out. Mostly they are only fished on these Southern rivers on the lowest beats near the sea, that is the semi-tidal and just above, and then only as a distraction to the salmon. The real seatrout fishing is elsewhere, in Wales and in the North. Partly the reason is that the seatrout often run very late in the season, often after the end of the season. True, you do get some fish into the river in late summer when there’s some fresh water coming in, but if the river drops again then they tend to return to the sea.

So my advice as a coarse angler is resist attempts to turn your local coarse river into a game river; argue that the coarse anglers’ contribution deserves better than third rate salmon angling that would exclude the rest. As Stuart Clough rightly pointed out, the high summer water temperatures of recent years on waters like the Hampshire Avon are making them less tenable for summer salmon, and surely the same would be true of rivers like the Thames and Trent?

Points of recognition (click for bigger picture)

If Ron wants to experience the best salmon and seatrout fishing then I suggest that he goes to the Falklands because I sure as hell am sick of the dominance of these fish, and don’t want them over-running the waters I fish again. Selfish maybe, but not as selfish as what happens when the game fish dominate.

Seatrout or Salmon?

For me the definitive list is in Freshwater Fishing by Hugh Falkus which gives six points of recognition. It is difficult to work from a photo unless the photo is outstanding in clarity. When you have the fish in your hands it’s easier; just try picking it up by the tail. Salmon can be picked up by the tail, seatrout can’t; who knows with a hybrid? With the 23lb fish its size alone makes it almost impossible to be a seatrout. John Ashley-Cooper’s book ‘A Ring of Wessex Waters’ lists many exceptional fish, both seatrout and salmon but authenticated seatrout over about 15lbs – none. A 23lb seatrout is as rare as a 5lb roach yet a 23lb salmon is just a decent springer. And that is why it is a million to one on that that 23lb fish was a salmon.

Without much better (unadulterated) photos we’ll never know for sure but every experienced salmon angler that has seen the picture says salmon without hesitation.

For reference, here are Falkus’s points of recognition from Freshwater Fishing.

1. Tail
When relaxed, the tail of a biggish seatrout is straight. When stretched it becomes convex. From being forked when relaxed, the salmon’s tail straightens out when stretched – but notice the two horns.

2.Wrist
The base of a salmon’s tail (the caudal peduncle) has a pronounced ‘wrist’. This enables an angler to tail a salmon, either with a mechanical tailer or by hand. The seatrout’s broader-based tail has no wrist. Hence, a seatrout should be netted or beached, never tailed.

3.Scale count
The scales are counted from the front edge of the adipose fin backwards and downwards to the lateral line.Seatrout count: 13-16 usually 14Salmon count: 9-13 usually 11

4.Anal fin
With the anal fin closed, the outermost ray of a seatrout’s fin is nearest to the tail. The innermost ray of the salmon’s fin is nearest to the tail.

5.Eye
The seatrout’s upper jaw reaches well past the hind edge of the eye. The salmon’s upper jaw reaches only to the hind margin of the eye.

6.Tongue
The seatrout has up to eighteen teeth on the vomerine bone (or tongue) with two to six on the head of the vomer. The salmon has a staggered single row of vomerine teeth, but none on the vomer head.