Wild
rainbows of the Wye
Though they originated from North America rainbow trout are now bred in
great numbers in Britain for food and for stocking into fisheries.
The rainbows in our various stillwater fisheries both large and small,
and in some rivers too where they have been stocked, must number several
millions in total.
Strangely though it is only rarely that rainbow trout manage to breed
in the wild in any significant numbers with the notable exception of the
river Wye around Bakewell and Rowsley in Derbyshire.
Over a hundred years ago now some 400 rainbow trout were imported and
released into Ashford lake beside the river upstream of Bakewell.
They easily negotiated the overflow from the lake and found the river
to their liking to the extent that they have reproduced themselves in
big numbers ever since, though some would say that this is to the detriment
of the native brown trout and grayling.
Strangely the Wye does not have very abundant hatches of ephemerid flies
that trout love to eat on most other trout streams.
Instead the trout have to diligently seek out and eat vast numbers of
little midges.
After the mayfly period is over for another year it is frustrating for
anglers on this river, where dry-fly-only is the rule, to spend hours
casting an artificial in vain to trout that are rising in great numbers
to the midges.
Before the mayfly artificial dry flies on hooks as large as size 12 will
often be taken, but after the mayfly it is a very different story with
the trout taking only minute midges.
The clue to this kind of feeding is to be found in the abundance or otherwise
of the midges, and this in turn depends on the condition of the sewage
effluent that flows into the river little way downstream of Bakewell.
As that town increased in size there have been at least three occasions,
the first of them in the 30s, when the sewerage effluent got worse and
the midge population increased as a result to the benefit of the trout.
Each time an ‘improvement’ in the quality of the effluent
was achieved to offset the worsening problems the midge population decreased
greatly, and for a few years the average size of the trout fell until
bagging a few takeable rainbows for the table became difficult.
At present, thanks largely to the efforts of river keeper Warren Slaney,
the Wye rainbows are in good condition.
If you are only accustomed to seeing rainbow trout from other waters you
will admire the attractive white edges that line the under fins of wild
Wye rainbows and I have always found the fish to be delicious pink-fleshed
food for the pan.