[Ewan Lindsay]

Went out to Lochter again today - beautiful day, flat calm and sunny.  4 Rainbows and another cracking wild Brownie - this one was almost 5lbs and, again, was in perfect condition.  It never ceases to amaze me the difference in condition between stocked and wild fish.  Goldhead GRHE was doing the damage.  Sorry about the picture quality; the light was getting dim.

Ewan

[the water buoys]

         That is a cracking brown Ewan well done.

         Henry.

[Allan Liddle]

Another nice fish Ewan.  I'll need to get over there quick before you've caught them all.

[Mike Barrio]

Well done Ewan ..... nice one

Cheers
Mike

[Kevin Moss]

Actually there was a stocking from Bob at Forgue in a few Northern fisheries that was supposed to be all 'bows but had some browns mixed in.  
Not that i'm saying all these fish came from this source, far from it, but it did explain the apparent sudden regular appearance of big browns in Insch, Rothes and Lochter.

No deliberate stocking of browns but accidental.

Certainly cant speak for other waters,but rothes has not had any browns from forgue as far as Im aware.Brown trout have been coming out of rothes regularly every year, for many years,Char were mixed about 4 or 5 years ago but not browns.
For one, they are way too expensive to stock.Why stock em when you get them for free from natures own water.

Sorry,we did get a couple(not dozens,but if memory serves it was 3) around 9 years ago,they were some x brood stock of 7/8lbs when it was hard to get large rainbows so we took them instead. 

[Allan Liddle]

Strange one that Kevin as it was at Rothes i asked Bob about this, and he confirmed that browns are often in the batch, especially if they'd gotten mixed in after heavy waters at Forgue?  Would explain the sudden appearance of these fish in the catch returns.

Anyway not matter as they're crackin fish none the less, and i'd still be happy to nail one or two.

[Kevin Moss]

How many years ago was this?

Not going into details,but certainly the batches which Derek delivered,I havent seen any browns among them in many years.In the past few years,Bob has delivered personally to us about 5 times himself,so this must have been many moons ago when he was there.
Maybe the odd small one will get mixed in now and again,but not in the numbers which are caught to say they are being stocked as part of a stocking.

Certainly there is no sudden appearance of browns at Rothes they have been consistant for many many years.

Hence my clarification on this.

[Allan Liddle]

Granted it was a while ago Kevin.  If you need the exact date just look back your catch returns for the sudden appearance of browns from say 2lbs to 5lbs?

Fair do's though if none of your fish have come this way then i stand corrected.  It's your water afterall so you'll know it best.

[Kevin Moss]

Thankyou for your reply.

I only wanted to put the record straight reference this as our water was mentioned along with others.What another water does or doesnt do is of no interest to me,but I only wished to clarify on ours as this is how rumours can start and if we had put them in we would say so and anglers would be welcome to take them away as we are a put and take fishery.

[Mike Barrio]

Very interesting week this week, most anglers are catching around one to six fish for their session, but those who put a bit of serious thought in to things are releasing something like a dozen to 30 fish
Great to see
Cheers
Mike

[Allan Liddle]

Great news Mike.  Sounds like the fish are getting into a feeding cycle.  Hope we don't get another big cold snap to feck it all up and knock everything back (or back too much)

Allan