Are you up near silent valley?Back in the Mournes earlier today
9 Brown Trout & 1 Pike
View attachment 530223
View attachment 530224
Are you up near silent valley?Back in the Mournes earlier today
9 Brown Trout & 1 Pike
View attachment 530223
View attachment 530224
What !!Back in the Mournes earlier today
9 Brown Trout & 1 Pike
View attachment 530223
View attachment 530224
Spelga, not far awayAre you up near silent valley?
Yes, a productive session Robbi, lost around three as well!What !!
Yes, they are, unfortunately some so called anglers are now killing the Pike & leaving them there. Guessing they think they are helping the native Trout there - too late, the Pike are there to stay I reckon & both them and the Brownies will co- habit no bother, as they do in lots of other Irish Loughs & rivers.
That’s what we’re asked to do so I’ll follow that. I’m no marine biologistIt is a myth that killing the pike you catch will solve any predatory problems.
Pike will regulate themselves to 10% of the biomass of the water. If you kill pike that you catch, you are removing the very predator than can regulate the myriad small pike and so you get an explosion of very hungry fish in the 1lb - 4lb bracket, eating anything and everything because they are eating for growth as well as maintenance. If you leave in the bigger pike 5lb up, they will be eating more of the smaller pike than you can catch. A 10lb pike is a female and will only eat once every couple of days. A 20lb pike doesn't even eat once a week, in still water, they figures are a little bit more often in running water because of energy expended, but they will never waste energy, even in rivers they will be sitting out of the current, in a slack, or behind some obstruction that affords them shelter from the current.
Fisheries that have left the pike alone have found the predation on the trout has LESSENED and catch rates have increased.
Cracking fishView attachment 532335View attachment 532335My biggest fish so far a lovely Mirror Carp. It does become a little bit addictive this fishing lark.



Interested question. Is the river catch and release? Do you ever take trout for eating? I love trout and eventually would like to learn fly fishing to enable me to catch my tea.Had my best Brown Trout fishing session for a long time (possibly ever)this evening - 21 landed in a 2 hour session. A new section of a local river, a bit of study on Google maps & a walk across a few fields dropped into the river & covered about a kilometer of water, upstream casting with a gold & red mepp.
Reckon about half a dozen were in the 3/4 - 1.5lb range. All returned.
View attachment 537557View attachment 537558
View attachment 537559
As Arnie said "I'll be back"