SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE, July 7, 1973
Stock fish – are they worthwhile?
By
Frank Sawyer
Sometimes I wonder if the present generation of trout fishermen will ever have the same regard for the sport as did their forefathers. Everything has indeed changed and many of today’s fishermen are getting an entirely wrong impression of their prowess at the waterside. To my way of thinking, anything easy to acquire is never valued for long and, compared to what it was in my younger days, fishing is now almost a playgame.
Today, most of the fish caught in the majority of trout fisheries are those which have been put into the water when they were big enough to count as takeable if hooked and landed. In many cases these are far larger than any which in the past were wild bred and, consequently, there is an entirely wrong impression formed about the water from which the fish are taken. You hear remarks such as: “So and so fishery is much better than it was 40 year ago. In the days of my grandfather they thought a pounder to be exceptional and a two pounder was one for a glass case. Yet last season we took 20 fish over three pounds and a lot over two.” Well, is it much better? It depends on which way you look at it. In those distant days the sport depended almost entirely on what the river itself could produce, not on what could be taken from it after being put in.
There is little to be proud of in catching big trout if these have been introduced after being fed for a couple or three years in a stew pond. The wild bred two pounder of the old days was worth a hundred of twice that weight from a fish farm, and probably took ten times the thought to catch. Why be disparaging about the 12 ouncers and pounders? Any river which can naturally produce numbers that size is worth a score of those where trout have to be put in to get anything worth fishing for. For my own part I would much rather see one tiny wild trout feeding happily at the edge of a river than a dozen two pounders swimming in midstream which I know went in the previous week.
I feel much the same when fishing water that has recently been stocked. It is nonsense to say that stock fish are as difficult to catch as wild ones, or that you need the same high class artificials to deceive them. You don’t. Stock fish are not choosey. They have very little knowledge of what is good, bad or indifferent when they are turned loose into a river or other environment. During their previous existence in the stew ponds their main food supply has been artificial. Many of the thousands herded together have never seen a natural fly or nymph, or indeed any other of the food animals which nature intended for them. Anything which has a resemblance to a processed pellet is more likely to be taken than the most beautifully tied imitation of an olive or iron blue.
Besides being more easy to deceive, stew fish are not easily scared. A splash down of fly of nymph serves to attract rather than to frighten. Such fish have been accustomed to having heavy food thrown on to the surface, often to pitch on their heads, and it doesn’t alarm them. The same thing applies to movement. A drag, jiggle or jerk of a floating fly on the surface, which would quickly scare any really wild fish, often goads a stew fish into taking. When fed in stews and ponds, a splash from one fish is often accepted by others as a message that food is nearby. Often enough you get the same thing happening when such fish are introduced to another water. If one is hooked and splashes about, the odds are that others, instead of being scared as wild ones would be, will come along to see what is happening.
Now I realise very well that it has become necessary to stock some of our fisheries. And it is something we must expect to do in the future. But to my mind the introduction of really large fish to be caught and gloated over has become something of a farce. By all means have them and catch them if it gives any satisfaction, but it would be nice if we could be spared the published details of such captures.
No one today raises as much as an eyebrow at the mention of trout up to ten pounds in weight and four pounders are accepted as common, while the really wild fish are just mentioned in passing.
When you know the size of fish which have been put in and that it is certain that there will be one around the next bend, the fascinating part of anticipation ceases to exist. When you know, too, that the fish you are after is just as likely to rise and take a bundle of deerhair or a chunk of foam rubber as a well constructed dry-fly or nymph, much of the pleasure arising from deception has gone as well.
Each week you can read of new patterns of lures and flies which have been evolved and of the successes they have brought. Even as we tried years ago to imitate the food taken by the wild fish, so the trend today is to make something which will be acceptable to the tame ones. It is no longer a matter of trying to copy the delicate structure of insects, but of creating something the fish might take to satisfy hunger.
Stock fish are always hungry and when they have been fed regularly at certain times, the habit of looking for food never really leaves them. At such time the appearance of anyone of the bank causes no fear, for in the past this sight has been a common one and linked with a food supply. It is true, where big stock fish have the chance to run and fight after being hooked, that they can give really exciting sport in the playing, especially when light tackle is used. Often the stock fish will fight much better and longer than a wild one and will never intentionally run into snags or weedbeds. It is true some do this but it is in a blind effort to escape from being tethered rather than from any thought of going to cover.
