Sea trout - how late do you fish

J. Ramone

I find the preferred time to fish for the sea trout varies from river to river. I've fished for sea trout mostly on the Slaney where best time is dusk until complete darkness whereupon the fishing slows. I've also found midday to be good if there is cloud and/or coloured water. I've found the evening rise to be poor in some Mayo rivers in August and September even when plenty of sea trout are coming to the salmon fly in daytime. On some rivers the preference is to begin as the light begins to fail.

Ideas anyone? is it purely to do with fish being more easily spooked in clearer or smaller waters. Do you find bigger sea trout more likely to take later?

SeaFields

I got a couple of sea trout this week in the middle of the way in a small river in kerry (my little secret spot!). When fishing the main river i fish for the i always find, as you say, that the fishing slows after the initial period from dusk until total darkness but will pick up again given a bit of time. If the fishing goes completely dead I throw on a large surface lure (muddler or something to that effect) which has accounted for some beautiful fish when no one else was catching.

How late do I fish? Often fished dusk until dawn and had a lovely seatrout one morning just as the sun started coming up.

J. Ramone

Surface lure seems popular with late night fishers alright. It might also attract fish to a wetfly on the same cast. I usually go up in fly size from 10 to 8 as it gets darker.

SeaFields

I only fish one fly at night. Makes it easier in the dark plus if i have a decent fish on its one less thing to worry about. Lost a decent fish years ago because the dropper got caught on something while playing the fish. But its a small spate river i fish in so a bigger river might be different.

90% of the time I use a medicine - size 10-12 low water salmon hook. The other 10% is the surface lure. Thats at night obviously.

J. Ramone

Find it hard to get out of the habbit of using more than one fly myself. Late at night it does make more sense to use one only. Why the salmon irons, sink rate or fly profile? Medicines look better alright on a black hook. I use sinking leaders a lot for sea trout. My favourite hook is Partridge L2A as it seems to hook easiest when trout are short taking.

eddie12

I find that the Slaney only fishes well in clear water from dusk till dark. I usually fish size 12 wets upstream in the evenings. I've also gotten them on the dry flies. As you mentioned, with coloured water the trout will take all day(I get on better with size 14 upstream wets during the day). At dark it seems to completely switch off for an hour or so. Then I put up a large wet sedge(8 or 10) and fish accross and down, it seems to switch on the larger trout. The fog on the water or a chill in the air really kills it of but if it stays warm it can fish well until dawn.

J. Ramone

I also found upstream wetfly good. Kill devils from 14 to 10 are the biz. Had many a nights fishing on the Slaney cut short by fog also. Funny the odd trout rising but none taking.

SeaFields

The Medicine is traditionally tied on a low water salmon hook. Since low water salmon hooks are not that heavy it must be the profile of the fly in the water which makes it more attractive. I suppose a medicine tied on a trout hook is effectively a teal blue and silver - minus the tail.

In all honesty I think sea-trout will hit anything if in the mood and having a box filled with all sorts of fur and feather just over complicates things.

Keep it simple like!

Zzippy

SeaFields wrote: »

I only fish one fly at night. Makes it easier in the dark plus if i have a decent fish on its one less thing to worry about. Lost a decent fish years ago because the dropper got caught on something while playing the fish. But its a small spate river i fish in so a bigger river might be different.

90% of the time I use a medicine - size 10-12 low water salmon hook. The other 10% is the surface lure. Thats at night obviously.

Same here - one fly - learned the same lesson when I lost a good fish in the dark cos the dropper snagged a bush.
I would fish until about 1am, find that things go quiet then, plus I'm usually in work the following morning and too tired to stay up all night.
Top flies for me at night are Teal Blue & Silver, Peter Ross and Alexandra, never had much success with surface lures to be honest.

TroyStavros

TroyStavros fishes all f-cking night! And that's what's up, yo!

SeaFields

Zzippy wrote: »

Same here - one fly - learned the same lesson when I lost a good fish in the dark cos the dropper snagged a bush.
I would fish until about 1am, find that things go quiet then, plus I'm usually in work the following morning and too tired to stay up all night.
Top flies for me at night are Teal Blue & Silver, Peter Ross and Alexandra, never had much success with surface lures to be honest.

I'll give you a good example of surface lures. I had been fishing the top end of a pool one evening and my father was fishing the lower end of the pool. It was a good night for sea trout but the fishing was after turning a bit slow. I hooked a nice fish but lost him again just as fast. My father came up to me and said he had seen the fish head and tail over my medicine which was skating across the surface. I throw on a minnow muddler and in (literally) had four fish in four casts -all beautiful fish.

Since then when the fishing turns slow on goes the surface lure

jwshooter

i fish the tributaries of the slaney the boro and urrin . dusk till dark till 12-1 or just before first lite.

the trick with the small pools is not to fish them to early.

i had 2 white trout a nite this week .

Tinytony

jwshooter wrote: »

i fish the tributaries of the slaney the boro and urine . dusk till dark till 12-1 or just before first lite.

the trick with the small pools is not to fish them to early.

i had 2 white trout a nite this week .

I hope you don't eat the fish you catch in that! Is that really a river?

derealbadger

TroyStavros wrote: »

TroyStavros fishes all f-cking night! And that's what's up, yo!

what sort of bait do you use stav

J. Ramone

Jail bait I'd say

TroyStavros

derealbadger wrote: »

what sort of bait do you use stav

Buddy-list bait and that's what's up!