Well its that time of year again, nights are drawing in, the 2017 Brown Trout season on the River Devon is already over and the Salmon/Sea Trout finish on Tuesday 31st October.
Time for an update!
The last few weeks of the season on the river were kind for anglers, with a couple of decent spates prompting Salmon into the river, interspersed with some lovely weather and encouraging the resident Brown Trout to head up river.
After a very good season for Brown Trout, trout fishing on the lower river slowed down but on the upper river trout were still rising to the dry fly on the season final day. I fished for two hours with the same Parachute Greenwells Glory ……
…… and found plenty of fish willing to give it a nibble, mostly of this kind of class.
With Castlehill full the river has reacted quickly to rain events and the numerous spates have brought a migratory fish into the river. A number of sea trout have been caught mostly in the 1lb to 3lb range. Salmon are being seen throughout the river occasionally splashing about in the pools but despite a lot of effort only a few have been caught including this fella (26″ so perhaps 7lb, which I caught on Saturday on the lower river)
Hopefully by the time of the next update several more will have been caught!
Salmon/Sea Trout holders please remember to return your catch returns by the 20th November even if it is zero.
https://devonanglingassociation.org.uk/2015-catch-returns/
At Glenquey the season ended on the 6th October, with the reservoir substantially full restricting the majority of the fishing to the southern bank. During August there were 56 anglers catch returns showing 139 fish caught (mean weight 0.63lb and anglers catching a mean 2.48 fish/visit). The final weeks of the season interest began to dwindle with only 30 catch returns submitted recording 103 fish caught (mean weight 0.66lb and anglers catching a mean 3.43 fish/visit)
Its been another great year at Glenquey; interestingly we have had 327 tickets submitted this year compared 2016 when 328 were submitted! This shows that anglers caught 1668 trout at a mean weight of 0.59lbs
As ever the work parties have been hard at work clearing fallen lumber (including the tree at Dollar weir) and access to the spawning burns. The team have also been out supporting the River Forth Fisheries Trust biologists undertaking electro-fishing surveys of a number of the key spawning burns and exploring the potential of underutilised burns. We will be working with the Trust over the winter to explore opportunities for further improvements. Members of the working parties are due to undertaking training with the trust’s invasive species team in the use of herbicides to control invasive plants. During the winter it is intended to look at the potential for making the north bank at Glenquey fishable when the reservoir is full, but this is a major undertaking due to the practicalities of getting equipment there and finding a home for the arisings.
To note for the future, as soon as arrangements for the DAA AGM are known we will publish on the website. In mid November we put up an online survey, nothing too taxing, which we hope anyone who has fished DAA waters in 2017 will complete ………. please 🙂
Hopefully the Salmon/Sea Trout anglers will have some luck in the next few days, otherwise 16th March 2018 isn’t that far off ……….. see you on the other side!
The Devon Angling Association 