Sex and Violence

[Westcountry]

Not far from my home there are a number of unremarkable small brooks. Tiny twisting waters hardly ever more than three or four feet wide half hidden behind hedges. They are too small and overgrown to fish and anyway they only hold a few eels, hundreds of bullheads and a handful of trout in the few deeper spots. But come November and December the brooks suddenly start to fill with trout from the main river on their spawning run. These are fairly modest fish generally no more than 12 inches long but along with them come the sea trout (sea run brown trout) which can be anything up to 10lb or more. Some of these sea trout will have entered the main river in April and some not until a few weeks ago.

Actually spotting the fish on the redds is a bit of a gamble, some years the water is too high, some years they are there and gone in less than a week and some years they turn up late! They have started on time this year but seem to be coming in dribs and drabs so catching them in the act has proved difficult. Walking up one of the brooks last week I spotted this good hen sea trout (about 7lb) lying on the tail of a small pool.




She was fairly actively cutting the redd with a number of smaller brown trout and a 4lb cock sea trout keeping her company. The light wasn't good enough to see the other fish in the photo's.




In previous years I have been luckier and got some better photo's.

These show some small browns and a 6lb cock sea trout (big hen fish out of sight tucked in under the bank). As you can see the big cock does his best to chase all the smaller fish away but it is a hopeless task as he is outnumbered.


7 inch trout





7 inch trout and 12 inch trout.





6lb cock sea trout







Seeing off the tiddlers!








The fish in the next set are again all cocks and they are fighting hard at the downstream end of a redd. The hen fish had retired to the body of the pool to await the outcome of the fight. The biggest fish in these pictures is about 5lb.





Note the little one behind waiting his chance to get to the hen unseen during all the confusion.





Ouch!




This gives some idea of how preoccupied the fish become when fighting, they take no notice of the dog!











These are my best efforts to date.
A very bright 6lb hen sea trout cutting the redd right under my feet.




A pair of 7lb sea trout.





Hen cutting redd.






The hen fish cutting the redd.










A pair of sea trout (hen about 3lb, cock 2lb) and a collection of small browns. Every time the hen turns on her side to cut the redd and release eggs the nearest small browns rush in, the cock sea trout chases them out and while he is distracted the rest of the tiddlers dive in so he comes back and sees them off - everything settles down for a minute or two and then they repeat the whole thing!





There are five fish in the picture above - below is the same picture with the fish marked, yellow spot on the hen's nose and red spots on the noses of the cock sea trout and three browns.






And finally some spawning salmon from a bigger stream high up on Exmoor.











Cock fish near side in these last two pictures.







I was going to say that watching this every year is nearly as good as fishing but it's not, it is better than fishing!!!

Andy

[ksbioteacher]

That is what it is all about....very nice.

[martin_b]

Awesome photos, thanks for sharing! I go past the little stream near my house every day these days, so hopefully I can post some photos of mine soon.

Martin

[Sean]

absolutely spectacular :clap:

[troutrageous1]

Wow...very cool pics. Thanks for posting those!

[njtrout]

Awesome! Some really cool 'action' shots! I've done the voyuer bit on some of the wild trout streams in my neck of the woods but, nothing like this...cool. The size of those fish - in a small stream - is amazing.

[Apache Trout]

Incredible! Thank You for the great post & pics!

[Wallyran]

Absolutely Amazing photos!

[greyfox]

Very impressive, thanks for the post, I've seen that once but not like the pics, maybe I should do some hiking along the streams near me as I've got plenty that flow into the Delaware.
Greyfox

[Satoshi]

Great!!
One thing that amazed me is that sea trout still look very bright; so different from Pacific salmon species, which all die after spawning.

Watching your pics and knowing that they are reproducing well make me really happy. Thank you for posting.

Satoshi