Devon is lucky in that it has healthy runs of sea trout on a large majority of its rivers. The sea trout season really gets under way from mid May when the larger fish enter the rivers. There are fewer fish but as a whole these will be bigger fish. From mid June the main runs of smaller fish from 1lb to 3lb gets under way. There will also be larger fish in with these runs too so there is always the chance you could connect with a sea trout of a life time!
Traditionally sea trout fishing takes place during the evening and conventional wisdom states that the angler should wait until it is dark and then wait a bit more or until the colour has gone out of the trees. We like to stick to this too but will often skate a large dry fly down a pool we are not planning to fish just as the sun is going down. It is great fun and can work really well.
The ever faithful patterns work well such as silver stoat, stoats tail, medicine, silver blue and teal but we will also tie on some “out of the box” patterns that might surprise some but trust us, they work!
The surface lure is also now an important part of the sea trouters armoury and can really stir a pool up when it feels like there is nothing going on. The pattern that is most popular at the moment is called the Jambo.
We also like to look for sea trout during the day and have noticed there are certain times of the day when they appear to become restless. During this time they will often take a large dry fly that we might drift over a pool naturally or sometimes will impart some movement just to see.
Be sure to try and have a trip to the river during the day so that you are aware of the pool if it is the first time you have fished it. This will make all the difference . Learning to spey cast will also make night time fishing so much easier as there will be no need to throw the line up behind you where it could get caught in trees.
For night fishing a 9 to 9 1/2 ft rod rated for 6 to 8 weight lines is perfect. Be sure to bring a torch with you and a spare, just in case.
