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A brief history of the National
Sea Trout Festival In 1996 Anthony Steel from Kirkwood, Dalton, near Lockerbie, had either a crazy idea or an inspiration. He proposed no less than a national sea trout festival to be held on the Annan the following year. This was partly to celebrate and publicise the sea trout itself, which in many people's minds is either some sort of poor relation of the mighty salmon or a sea going brown trout with pretensions; and partly to boost the River Annan which was a superb sea trout river in the past and has become so again following a rocky period in the 80's. (3,069 sea trout were caught on this 30 mile river in 1998 and over 1,127 salmon)
There were the usual detractors and knockers who said it would never work, and some perfectly genuine concern at the thought of a competition involving sea trout. Understandably so since on the west coast of Scotland sea trout are having a very hard time indeed - I hasten to add that this of course has nothing to do with the plethora of salmon farms on the west coast - it's just a coincidence. Following some very intense activity the first ever National Sea Trout Festival and Sea Trout Challenge took place on various beats of the Annan over a period of a week in July, 1997, complete with an opening dinner, a conference, casting and cookery demonstrations, and a closing lunch. In the middle of all that the entrants fished six different beats of the Annan on six consecutive nights, 9pm to 4am, and even squeezed in a little sleep. A lot of sea trout were caught, most were returned, but enough were kept to be appreciated by all concerned at the closing lunch. Certainly some sea trout were knocked on the head - apart from anything else most sea trout anglers enjoy eating sea trout - but for the "competition" part of the festival the rules are framed in such a way that most fish can be released, in many cases without being brought to the bank. Because of the way the beats are divided up, and the number of marshalls, most fish caught will be in the view of a marshall. So long as the fish is clearly a trout and over 10 inches, as soon as the marshall sees it, it's counted and can be returned. Whether it's a brown trout or sea trout doesn't matter under the rules, and neither does the weight. The only thing which is relevent is the time the fish was caught. If the fishing is good on a particular night then the time the fifth fish is caught is also important as, under the rules, no further fish count, so the angler can go home, or, more likely relax and carry on fishing. Full details of the 1997 Festival |
The festival was proclaimed a success by all concerned and Anthony found himself organising another one for the following year. The poor soul has an estate to run, along with holiday cottages and his own stretch of fishing on the Annan - details at Kirkwood Cottages. Since Anthony is a very keen angler himself he found he didn't have much time left over for fishing, and as the saying goes "When work interferes with fishing it's time to stop working" The second festival, held in July 1998, utilised most of the same beats on the Annan as the previous year, but there were also beats on the Esk and Nith. On this occasion too most of the 50 odd marshalls who were used to supervise the fishing part of the festival had the opportunity of a night or two on some of the beats. Full details of the 1998 Festival |
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It was always intended that the Festival would "go walkabout" and be held on rivers throughout the UK, probably returning to the Annan every 3 to 5 years. It was hoped that it would go to Wales in 1999, but for various reasons the arrangements fell through and Anthony and his team of helpers found themselves arranging a sort of mini festival at very short notice. The previous competitors and marshalls converged on the Annan in July, 1999 and got in a bit of sea trout fishing without any of the trappings of the festival apart from a closing meal - and a good time was had by all. |
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| Home | So we come up to date with the National Sea Trout Festival and Sea Trout Challenge definitely taking place on the Towy, Teifi and E Cleddau in south west Wales from 9th to 16th July, 2000. All details can be found at 2000 |
