Trout breeding & stocking Archives

Book launch

When I was at varsity there was this dumb saying, that in a man’s life he should buy a farm, write a book, and visit a whorehouse! I have no intention of achieving one of those, and another I simply can’t afford. I have however published a book! This is an announcement I make here with conflicting emotions of satisfaction and humility. Satisfaction, because it has been close on two years of work, and I am pleased as punch with the result. Humility, because ……well because it feels downright pretentious and uncomfortable to announce this out in the marketplace and

21 September 2015

Troutless in Africa

On Friday, as I lowered the back door of the aircraft, turned and reversed down the steps onto the tarmac, I felt cool dry April afternoon air swirl around me and lift my spirits. I had come home. Home to Southern mountains, to prospects of winter frost, to Trout, and good coffee. I had left behind sticky Mozambique, with it’s potholes, humidity, train ambushes and sugarcane. I had left behind Tanzania’s red earth rivers, it’s bribes and mosquitoes. I had left behind Lusaka’s dust, incomplete buildings, and broken machinery. We had retreated to the place with good freeways, neatly laid

6 April 2014

Journeys through the journal (4)

It was mid winter in 2012. The fishing club committee had arranged a week-end on a large stillwater, for us to see if we could help the hatchery there boost it’s brood stock with some hens and cocks. On the Saturday I enjoyed taking my good friend Win out on the canoe. Win had had a rough year, health wise, and I enjoyed the opportunity to help him “break the fishing drought” so to speak. Some of us took a few minutes to find our sea legs! The boat is stable in that it will never tip over, but it

15 February 2014

Boston, Bass and Big Bangs

In recent weeks, fate has taken me into the Boston area on several occasions to spend time there with a farmer ,a forester and a faucet. On Saturday, I dragged myself from an afternoon snooze. Between that and a looming business trip commencing Sunday morning, I knew I had to fit in an errand to Boston to shut off a valve on a dam. As we wound down the hill between the trees in the gathering gloom of the front that was curling in from the South, I spotted the dam in the distance. Even from there I began to

27 November 2013

Strip-show

In his excellent book, “Frogcall”, Greg French uses this as a name for the chapter on stripping Trout. Here is a photo essay, a “visual trifle”, of the process, as undertaken by my friends and I each winter:

13 July 2013

Keepers

My friend Roy sent this to me the other day: “I grew up with parents who kept everything & used them time & time again! A mother, God love her, who washed aluminium foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen before they had a name for it. A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones. Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in

9 July 2013

Means fair or foul

Breeding season for us ‘week-end hatchery guys’, brings on some peculiar behaviour. We go fishing with toolboxes, brush-cutters, wire cages, cleaning equipment, poles, thermometers and the like. And on many trips we don’t get to fish at all. But we still have a lot of fun. While we catch most of our brood fish fairly, and on fly, it is silently acknowledged that to trap them is equally honourable. This requires a good fish trap in the feeder stream. Fish trap building:

23 May 2013

Trout breeding photo essay: Step one, egg collecting

21 March 2013

They grow bigger in the wild

We have known for some time that fish grow faster in a dam (Americans read pond/lake) than they do in the hatchery. A hatchery you see, is a business enterprise. And a business enterprise had best watch its feed conversion ratio if it wants to be successful. In other words the level of feeding required for an optimum feed conversion ratio, is not the same thing as the feeding required for maximum growth rate.

2 February 2013

A Fishing log

Nothing fuels the fires of nostalgic fly-fishermen quite like a fishing log. There are personal logs, and there are those old books that the farmer keeps for his water. The one for which he calls you into the light of his kitchen, to fill-in before you depart. They may be leather bound, or maybe just a simple book from the stationer in town, but either way the book will be tatty from age and use. And if it is not yet a little yellowed , just give it time.

13 January 2013