SEA TROUT GO by all sorts of names. If you live in Wales it is sewin. In the West Country peal. In Scotland finnock. Down the northeast coast of England whitling. Add into the mix salmon-trout, herling, school peal, harvesters and slob trout (there are more names, but enough for now), and you might be forgiven for wondering how one fish can have so many names. After all salmon are always salmon, brown trout are always brown trout, so what is it with these sea trout? The truth is they are the most mysterious of all the Evitt fish (we boringly insist on calling them sea trout), defying nearly all the norms of life in a chalkstream, gripping the wild imagination of fishermen unlike any of the other species.
But why? To start with look at their life cycle. With a salmon it is pretty clear: you are born in the river, then head for the ocean and do your growing up off the Greenland coast, to return a few years later to the river of your birth to spawn and in all likelihood die thereafter. Brown trout on the other hand live more parochial lives, but with sea trout things get complicated. First, they are in every sense of fish science the same fish as brown trout. The brown trout is Salmo trutta. The sea trout is Salmo trutta. Salmon for the record are Salmo salar. Put at its very simplest, sea trout are run-of-the mill, bog standard brown trout who decide to run away to sea.
There are many theories as to why the sisters of Scar Boy up sticks and head for life in the salt water: lack of food in the mother river, low- or high-water years, genetic programming to ensure the preservation of the species, with some staying in the river whilst others go to sea, or simply the occasional freak event that drives behaviour. The one thing we know for sure is that more females than males head for seas because they need a rich diet to become prolific egg producers. However, before all that happens, the simple fact is that sea trout are born as brown trout, spending their first years at Gavelwood as is normal for their kind, going through the usual transition from egg to alevin and fry to parr, at which point the putative prodigal daughters will be about 5 inches long and coming to three years of age. It is here they meet the fork in the road. Take the low road and our parr moves smoothly into brown trout adulthood. Take the high road and the parr starts the smoltification process, where, like the salmon, his juvenile body undergoes physiological changes that will make the body anadromous, capable of living in salt water. Now a smolt, our fish loses his brown colour to turn bright silver, and they shoal together during the nights of March and April before heading for the sea.
You could be forgiven for thinking at this point that this is just a feral brown trout that has decided to adopt the salmon lifestyle, but sea trout are not impelled, or do not have the instinct of salmon, to cross the Atlantic and spend years at sea. In fact some sea trout spend no more than a few months away from the river, barely venturing further than the estuary before returning home. Others, on the other hand, travel hundreds of miles up and down the British coastline gorging themselves to become as much as ten times larger than the siblings they left behind. But like salmon they have that natal urge to return to the river of their birth, and come the warm nights of late June our ears become tuned in for signs of their arrival.
The best sea trout fishing takes place at night, somewhere from ten o’clock to two in the morning, and there is a saying with sea trout fishermen that you should never cast a line until the grass on the opposite bank loses its colour. So as the dusk turns to night gloom I find myself drawn to Pike Pool every Midsummer’s Night in the hope that they have arrived. The fascination with sea trout lies, at least in part, in that you know, or think you know, that they are there but you can’t damn well see them. You could spend all day (some have) peering into the depths of Pike Pool to catch a glimpse and nothing. Sea trout are like silent-running submarines, arriving unseen and unannounced, at the time of their choosing, using the cover of the darkness to make their run from the sea to Gavelwood. Like salmon they are making the return to spawn, but arriving as they do as early as June they are well ahead of schedule and will hang around for the autumn. So it begs the question, if they are around for so long, why don’t we see more of them? After all, the river is hardly the ocean, and every other fish will make itself known from time to time, even the salmon.
The fact is that sea trout, unlike the brown trout they once were, are nocturnal, preferring to move at night, and the first time I know they are back is when I hear a ‘splosh’ as they leap from the water somewhere out in the darkness of Pike Pool. It’s an electric moment; you rarely see the fish itself, the noise drawing your eyes through the half-dark to catch a glimpse of a few fading ripples and white waves. The larger the splosh and the larger the disturbance to the water the more the imagination races. Huge sploshes must of course mean huge fish – after all why not indulge that wild imagination? There is something strangely alluring about fishing for sea trout, as it defies most of the trout fly-fishing truths. First, you do it at night. Second, you are casting blindly to fish that may or may not be there. And third, all those precious rules about matching the hatch and delicate presentation, plus stealth and concealment, promptly go out of the window. There is something of the lottery about sea trout fishing that gives it an edge. Zipping out that fly line into the dark, the plop of the fly into the water the only indication of a cast well executed. The water catches the line, tautening it in your hand as the current sweeps the line across and down the pool. In your mind’s eye you can see the fly twist and turn in the water somewhere out there in the dark, a few inches beneath the surface. What does the sea trout see in your feeble feather and fur creation? Does the phosphorescence trail the fly creates through the water from the rays of the moon trigger some memory of the ocean? A sand eel perhaps, or a baby cod? It must be a memory thing for the sea trout, who like the salmon, doesn’t feed in fresh water.
Whatever the reason the fish might take my fly, there is something satisfying about the logic of fishing Pike Pool, or any sea trout pool for that matter. I start at the top, moving a little downstream with each successive cast so that I gradually cover the entire pool with the sweep of the fly. With each new cast springs new hope, regardless of what has gone before. Occasionally a splosh out there in the dark will tempt me to break the rhythm, but generally I stay with the plan. In the dark everything comes down to touch, there is none of the visual of dry fly-fishing. The fingers that grasp the line are my antennae, the first indicators of a fish. The more you cast the more you get the feel of the water, distinguishing between being momentarily caught on weed or the tentative pull of a fish tweaking at the body of the fly but not the hook.
At the end of the pool I pause. The grass on the far bank has now lost all its definition and the moon slides out from behind the clouds to illuminate Pike Pool, giving enough light to show the roots of the alder trees on the far side, stark black above the silver of the water. This is where I need to cast. Sea trout like the gloomy shade and undercut beneath the trees, scooting out under the cover of dark to frolic and chase around the pool. With a new plan I tie on a new fly and head back to the top of the pool. In the light of the moon I am no longer casting in the dark, and with each new cast I land my fly as close to the roots as I dare. As the line hits the water I lift the rod tip, raising the belly of the fly line out of the water and rolling it upstream as if doing a backhanded swing of a skipping rope. This upstream mend momentarily pauses the fly in the slack water beneath the roots, enough time I hope to catch the attention of the fish before the current snatches the belly of the line. As the flow moves the fly downstream I strip the line back towards me to take up the slack. Cast, mend, strip. Cast, mend, strip. Time after time I repeat the action, my fingers alert to the tiniest twitch, my eyes tracking the line that shows up black against the gleaming, moonlit surface. I am watching for that moment when the line stops moving, the moment when the sea trout has taken the fly in her mouth but applied no pressure. Cast, mend, strip. Cast, mend . . . suddenly the line stops moving. I strip hard and my fingers feel the pressure. Up comes the rod tip and down goes the line, surging into the deep water under the roots as the trout reacts. The fish pulls so fast that the fly line burns my fingers and I feel the bang, bang, bang as she hammers her angry head against the line and hook.
Abruptly the anger goes out of the line; not so much a slack line but an unmoving one. I know what is next. The trout has tried flight, she is now going to try fight, and comes out from under the roots into the middle of Pike Pool, where she shoots into the air before crashing back into the water. Emboldened she turns, tears downstream and in doing so rips more line through my fingers. I hold the rod tip up high and let her go, go, go, taking all the line she wants. The further she goes the more the pressure of the line in the water slows her progress, and at the tail of Pike Pool she pauses as the water shallows. Her instincts are conflicted. More flight seems the obvious choice, but shallow water equals jeopardy, and whilst she weighs up the options I take control, pulling her upstream against the current towards me. With long, smooth pulls of the line she gets closer to me as I try to keep her head on the surface to disorientate her. A few times she shakes her head in an attempt to free herself from the hook, but the fast, rhythmic movement of my pulls seems more calming than frightening.
When she is close to the bank I take the line in one hand and throw the rod down with the other, lying on my stomach over the edge to pull the last few yards of line in hand over hand until I can slide my fingers down the smooth nylon tippet to grasp the hook with my thumb and forefinger half in, half out of her mouth. For a moment we stare into each other’s eyes. I have no idea what she sees; it is probably best to not even guess. But I see a bright, silver trout honed by life at sea. This is a fish that is as fit and as buff as any creature on the planet will ever be. It is a body with thousands of sea miles on the clock. She has fought tides. Evaded seals. Run the gauntlet of nets. The odds of making it this far are so slim as to be of lottery jackpot proportions. But she has done it, and with a twist of my hand the hook is out. For a short moment she doesn’t move, not sure that she is free, but as the current moves her away from me she dips her head and is gone.
After all the commotion of the fish the meadows and the river suddenly seem very silent. Oppressive, no, but eerie, yes, as the whole scene is bathed in bright moonlight. It is an odd thing, but we have a few nights every summer when the moon shines as bright as the sun, casting sinister shadows and illuminating a night-time landscape that is nearly as well defined as a daytime one, just monochrome not colour. Sitting on the stile, clipping off the fly and putting away my fishing stuff I feel very much like a spy. I am in place at a time I shouldn’t be, but to leave seems the wrong thing to do. As the minutes go by my ears attune and the silence gives way to the night-time life of a river. Somewhere behind me I can hear the cattle grazing. They never seem to stop. Their tongues twist around the stems of the meadow grasses and I can hear the stems tear as they pull them off the turf. Their steady rumination, the scrunch, scrunch, scrunch as they chew the cud, is the signature tune of the water meadows, the sound of the summer that is punctuated from time to time by sharp coughs and strangled exhalations. Occasionally I feel the vibration of their footfalls radiating through the damp ground. All in all the presence of the cattle provides a comforting rhythm, a sign that all is right with the world, and as long as they are content to graze unconcernedly I know nothing bad can happen to me.
The bats are still around, swooping and twisting. Like the owls, night time, be it pitch-black or white moonlit like tonight, creates no problems for them. They hunt entirely with noise, emitting high-pitched sounds, inaudible to us, that bounce back off their prey to be picked up by their supersensitive ears, which guide them in to the kill. And kill they do. Bats work at night not only because it suits their hunting modus but because they need the fields to themselves. Competition from birds and all the other creatures that feed on insects is most unwelcome, because every bat needs to daily consume one third of its body weight. That is a lot of insects, hundreds in fact, so Gavelwood is a night-time killing meadow of epic proportions as the bats patrol the layers of air from the water surface to high in the sky for hours on end. Occasionally I will see one break the surface of the river as it drinks mid-flight, dipping its mouth into the water as it makes the rapid fly-past. But eventually as the heat goes out of the evening air they become fewer and fewer, returning to their daytime roosts as the insects gradually stop flying, settling down for the night on the grass and bushes safe from sonar contact.
Way upriver, echoing on the night air, I hear a slide and a plop, followed by the same again a few seconds later, then nothing. I know exactly who this is and what they are about. It is the otters. They treat the river like a highway, travelling dozens of miles in a night if they have a mind to. These are regulars, passing through Gavelwood a few times each week, so much so that they have created ‘slides’ on the bank, flattened grass and slick, muddy patches where their clawed paws grip the earth, so regularly do they get in and out at the same spot. Later on in the summer they will arrive with their pups, and if they do the progress is anything but silent. The pups are incapable of getting in and out of the river quietly. They either tumble from the bank, splashing down in the water, or thrash their shorter bodies first against the water and then the bank vegetation to get purchase to haul themselves out. And all this accompanied by a regular high-pitched eek emitted to tell the parents of their exact location every half a minute or so.
But tonight the progress is too quiet to be anything other than the parents; I can only guess that the pups are still too young for hunting trips and have been left in the safety of the holt. No doubt they will be here in a few weeks’ time, but for now if I strain my ears and shut out the other extraneous night sounds I can hear the pair coming as they swim downstream in my direction. I don’t bother to move. I already have a prime seat. Pike Pool is a regular destination for the otters. They enter it in unison, their heads poking up and their side whiskers dripping with water, drooping long and thick, the moisture catching the rays of the moon. As they swim, paddling with their front paws or, if drifting with the current, gently undulating their broad tail for extra propulsion, they constantly rotate their heads 15 degrees to the left then 15 degrees to the right, as if scanning the water ahead. I used to think they were on the lookout for food, but perhaps it is more about sweeping the pool, trailing those supersensitive whiskers in the water to pick up the vibration of prey below. From time to time one of them will arch its back and slide beneath the surface, popping up a few seconds later. Whether it is reconnaissance, boredom or just playfulness I do not know, but they will continue to do this as they circle the pool until quite suddenly and in complete contrast to the previous dives, which were almost silent, the pair will crash-dive beneath the surface. The hunt is on.
It is said that otters can hold their breath for up to four minutes; if they can they don’t do it when hunting in Pike Pool. No doubt the effort quickly depletes their air reserves, and within less than a minute one or other will surface, spitting out air and spray in a violent, strangled exhalation that reverberates across the pool. If the exhalation sounds tortured, the inhalation sounds desperate as the otter sucks in air like a sixty-a-day smoker wheezing at the top of the stairs before plunging under the water again. Otters like to hunt in pairs, it is clearly most effective, and within a few minutes one of them will finally surface with a fish sideways in the jaws and still flapping. From this distance I will never be able to tell whether it is a sea trout or brown trout, but it is definitely not an eel or grayling, the only other types of fish at Gavelwood the otters would chase with such enthusiasm. Up onto the bank the two bound and with a deft flick the fish is turned head-first towards the otter, who grips it with the front paws ready to deal the coup de grâce with a bite to the back of the head. It is only when the fish is dead that the otters relax, the body lying between them as they do a quick scan around them. They spot me on the first sweep, but rather than being alarmed they seem nonplussed. That’s the thing about otters; they are most definitely kings of the river valley. Nobody eats them, nobody attacks them and as long as there is water in sight their line of retreat is guaranteed. But humans they don’t really compute in their world. Large, yes. Dangerous, probably not. But on the whole, maybe best given a wide berth. So, dismissing me as innocuous but best avoided they pick up the fish and disappear into the night, heading along the bank with that gambolling run that makes them appear as fluid along the ground as they are in the water.
Somewhere upstream I hear them slide back into the river, and very soon the meadows settle down into the deep quiet of the early hours. The fish have stopped moving, idle until dawn at the earliest. Brown trout feed largely by sight, so the night time closes down their ability even to take nymphs, and in truth at this time of year they will wait until well past sunrise and for the warmth of the day to bring on the hatch before deigning to show themselves. The sea trout have taken to the deep recesses for another twenty-two-hour cycle of doing nothing. After all it is a long wait for these early arrivals, weeks and months until they begin cutting redds in October, so without the desire to feed, the emphasis is on keeping their body intact until the time comes. It is fair to wonder why they insist on breaking this purdah by cavorting in Pike Pool for a few hours each night. Maybe it is pent-up energy; after months or years at sea, an attempt to throw off the confinement of the river.
Two hours past midnight and Gavelwood sleeps. There is a distinct chill to the air as the lack of cloud cover allows the heat to dissipate and a cold dew covers the grass, even settling on the wide, flat backs of the cattle that continue to graze heads down and barely moving. Everyone else is tucked up. The waterfowl are hidden in the reeds. The voles and field mice are in their burrows. The fish apparently don’t exist. I am sure the crayfish are out scavenging the riverbed, but I can’t see them. As I make my way along the bank, leaving a dark footprint trail in the silver dew, I hear the occasional ‘gloop’ as a bed of weed gets sucked down by the current and surfaces again. On a fence post ahead a barn owl observes my progress with indifference. His hunting night is over; all his food has gone to ground. Maybe he is hanging around for an unwise baby rabbit to show itself, but he doesn’t even bother to move as I pass within touching distance. We both know it’s over for tonight. Tomorrow is another day.