Here is the take on it from Loch Leven
" Although we had no say in whether the fish was killed or released (It was caught around noon and the first we heard was when Alan arrived back in the harbour at 6pm), we at Loch Leven Fisheries were delighted he brought back the fish with him. Loch Leven has a long and varied history as a world renowned brown trout fishery and this fish was truly historic, being by some way the largest brown trout ever caught, surpassing the previous one which had stood for over 100 years.
True, it could have been weighed, measured for length and girth, photographed and released if the anglers had all that necessary equipment to hand – and who knows what condition it would have been in after all of that and whether it would have been in any shape to survive once released particularly after the fight it put up before being landed? However, we would still be reliant on the evidence of 2 anglers and a weigh-in of limited accuracy. Bearing in mind its significance in the history of Loch Leven, we were delighted to have been able to officially confirm it as a record. It is not going to be eaten (you may or may not be right about how it might taste) but instead be preserved, mounted and displayed alongside the trout that has previously held the record for over 100 years.
Had it been released, it may or may not have survived. However, in all likelihood when the scales are analysed by Marine Scotland, we will probably find that the fish is around 10 years old. If that is the case, it would be very much in its twilight years and likely to die from natural causes if for no other reason within a year or two. We dont know for sure how old Loch Leven trout can live to but, Willie Wilson, with all his 50+ years dealing with brown trout in this part of Scotland, has never known one to be aged by the laboratory at more than 11 years old.
Various anglers have lamented that, by no longer being alive, the trout would not be able to pass its genes to future generations of potentially large specimens. I would not worry too much about that – I suspect it has been happily spreading its ‘genes’ around for many years up until now.
We at Loch Leven Fisheries are hugely appreciative of the increasingly responsible attitude taken by anglers about catch & release over the last decade or so. That said, we are 100% in support of anglers who do kill some of the trout they catch where they are taking them home ‘for the pot’. After all, fishing for food is arguably the fundamental rationale for fishing for trout in the first place. Indeed, we encourage anglers to take them home to eat because, as a unique pink fleshed brown trout, they are utterly delicious to eat. Where we would look on askance would be if killed fish were subsequently just dumped which some ‘put & take’ fisheries have anecdotally experienced.
Catch & Release, when done with care, will certainly have helped in the recovery of the Loch Leven trout population over the last decade or so but we suspect it is only a relatively small factor. For any number of contributory reasons, not least the huge improvement in water quality which has resulted in abundant foodstuffs on which trout can feed, the current fish population in terms of numbers is more than capable of sustaining the relatively small proportion of brownies that are killed each year, both by anglers and cormorants etc. If we felt for one moment that there was an issue about numbers, we would pass that on to anglers and review our policy of having no specified limit at all on trout caught by anglers. But we dont have any concerns at the moment about either trout numbers or irresponsible anglers. We think, and hope, that we have a good balance here at Loch Leven. "
Jim
