sea trout kelts

[Deleted]

Hi All,
A Teign member carried on his tough days brown trout fishing on opening day with a couple of hours sea trout fishing!
That is early to start on the UTFA, he caught 2 but was unsure if they were kelts.
He arrived at my house yesterday with photo's, sadly they were kelts, he managed to release one, the other died on the spot.
One measured 26'' that equates to a fish approx 7lb when it originally entered the river last year.
So i for one will not be sea trout fishing until we get a rise in water, i usually venture out in mid April.
What about everyone else, when do you start?
Cheers
Richard

[BarleBlanker]

Richard any chance you can post the photo's on here?
I have only ever seen one sea trout kelt in the flesh (from the Dorset Frome). When I used to do a lot of sea trout fishing it was on the Axe where the season opens on April 15th by which time there were no kelts left in the river. Some years there weren't any fresh ones either! But if they did run in April they were the best fish of the season, rock hard bars of silver.


Andy

[Deleted]

Andy,
I will try and get him to send the picture to me, hopefully he hasn't deleted it!
They were long and thin, no girth to them at all.
He didn't check the gills so not sure if they had any maggots in them, yuk!
Cheers
Richard

[sandy]

Saw some nice new seatrout on the Plym estuary a couple of days back Andy, big fat ladies just starting to nose the river waters. I'm sure a big flush will be required to push the winter Kelts back into the Estuary and allow some of the fresh fish to make a bid for the upper teign waters.

Last year in April there were some nice fish moving around Newton Abbot and into the brackish water in April, all bars of silver and some quite a size . Reckon down by the water works with the right fly and an intermediate line might be worth a wee try .

Its a shame to hear about the loss of the kelt some of these can make it back year on year and become the big ladies of future folklore. Better maybe sticking to lower reaches and salt water if looking for silver early on - can be quite interesting.

Tight Lines Sandy.

[robmason]

I've not seen a ST kelt. I seldom brave it before May which probably explains it. I may give it a go this month if it warms up a little. I had a days dry fly fishing on the Itchen yesterday. Very cold and no rising fish.

[sandy]

Ah Rob,

you need to be in the Sunny, Warm, Far Southwest - gods country for troots at this time of year ;D.

The Itchen now thats a fine river! must be some great fishing at times on there.

Sandy.

[robmason]

I was fishing as a guest. My first time. Some big spawning grayling in evidence. The other let down was the water clarity, not the gin clear I was expecting, but apparently it doesn't settle down until May.

[luap]

Had a couple of short sessions on the lower Teign of less than 2 hours this week. I fished late dusk before it got cold. On both occasions I saw sea trout and more amazing, on Thursday, another night angler! So there are some fish in the river plus some loonies trying to catch them. No pulls of course but things might change if we get some overcast nights and it stays warm, or we get some rain. The gravel is starting to get slimy and wading sends a stream of goo downstream so it is a bit like last year, though much milder.
Maybe it would be worth fishing the tidal water but I have never heard of the estuary producing.
Richard, I have posted you a message.

[luap]

Though not a Teign fish, I caught a 20" sea trout kelt on March 9th 2013 while fishing for chub in the Exe with cheesepaste as bait. This was the second sea trout I have hooked on the Exe but the first landed. Its status as a kelt was obvious though I am not certain that I didn’t have a better mended kelt from the Teign in May 2009.
With the survival of sea trout kelts being likely, they need to be handled carefully. Looking at the internet however, Salmon kelts seem unlikely to survive and male fish may always die and only the occasional female will make it back to the sea. I have seen quite silver salmon kelts in the lower Exe swimming around on their sides in the process of dying (I assume).
Interesting though that on some rivers, spawned salmon are retained in freshwater until ready to breed again and then stripped for their eggs. That doesn’t seem to tie up with kelts being seen to die in freshwater so I don’t really know what goes on. It does seem though that salmon struggle to make the osmotic adjustments needed to move into saltw*ter from freshwater while it is an easy process for sea trout.
A good season to everyone and lets hope we can get started properly soon.
Paul