After 20 years of recording terrible catch rates for sea trout, anglers on the Shetland Isles could have been forgiven for giving up hope of catching a sea trout in the Isle’s lochs and burns, but two decades of no more than ten sea trout per year were turned on their head in 2007, with a total of 471 caught: nearly 50 times the yearly average!
This huge jump in figures is the result of a concerted effort to restock sea trout to the Shetland Isles, following the long period of dramtically low numbers.
SASA secretary Alex Miller told the Shetland News:
“There got to be so few fish around people gave up on it. We had a restocking programme over the last few years when we put thousands of smolts into various areas lochs and burns.
The fish we restocked have obviously grown on, gone to sea and fattened up, then come back again. It is just the cycle of how the fish lives.
We are certainly happy that our restocking programme has been worthwhile. It has been very successful. We have been doing it for four or five years, but obviously it takes the fish a wee while to grow and return to sea.”
While there are no figures for 2008 yet – Miller expects the number caught to be fewer than 400 – still a sizable catch is expected for this year.
This is yet another successful attempt to restock previously booming fish habitats: Shetland around the war years had been teeming with sea trout. Numbers have fallen as the result of a cumulative effect of a number of factors, including sea lice from fish farms, poaching, and seals. It is quite obvious that much of the problems are human, however, so it is good to see that the attempts to restock are starting to redress that balance.
Unfortunately, as with many similar stories up and down the British Isles, it remains to be seen whether or not stock levels will ever approach what they were in the past.
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