Bo-vlakte

[chris williams]

Just to add a bit of confusion...when I fished the Welsh rivers as a kid for sea trout the Welsh called them 'sewin'. And when I fished for them at my uncle's place in Cornwall on the Tamar, the Cornish (and in Devon) called them 'peal'. They were all the same sea-run brownies. So in the space of about fifty or a hundred miles from where I lived, they would variously be known as 'sea trout', 'peal' or 'sewin'!

What the Americans call 'sea trout' is I think the euphemistic name for what they also call 'weakfish' on their East Coast.

PS - Imagine asking a Hout Bay commercial fisher of his catch : 'Peal?'...

[chrisvd]

exactly Chris.

Sea trout is new to me, but I do know what steelhead is.. Wanted to fish the santa cruz river in Argintina for a looong time now, check out the pic

[NeilRowe]

As per Wikipedia "sewin (Wales), finnock (Scotland), peal (West Country), mort (North West England) and white trout (Ireland)."

[pieterkriel]

Bovlakte brown and STEELHEAD pics .You be the judge!Deewy hope you have a good weekend,there are no more of those yellow fish things we caught last time.Lots of Bovlakte Steelhead though.

Very nice walk of the mill, standard but as always pretty browns you posted here, did you forget to post the "Steelhead" pics? So looking forward to see what South African Steelheads look like.

[chris williams]

Round the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries, didn't there used to be sea-runs of brownies from I think it was the Eerste river in the Cape? I know I've got the info at home in an old book somewhere. I seem to recall it may be in Bob Crass's tome about the history of trout in SA. That being so, we have had sea trout here.

I wonder if conditions would be conducive currently in any SA river for rainbows to theoretically go out to sea and breed and return giving us our own steelheads? I guess it could really only happen in the Western Cape area where you have the cold current pushing up and further east I guess the warm Mozambique current would make the sea temp too warm?

[NeilRowe]

Chris

The trek netters off Fish Hoek landed an unidentified fish (in the 1950's I think)which was later indentified by Prof JB Smith as a brown trout. Probable origin, the Eerste River. In a subsequent study, the Eerste estuary was netted and there were a number of sea trout amongst the marine species.

The Lourens River in Somerset West has sea run rainbows. This phenomena was also observed by catching Steelheads in the sea off the Strand and, once again, by observing estuary catches. I am convinced this still happens, on occasion, as I have heard reports about sea runs for over 30 years and I am almost positive I hooked one a few seasons back (In Radloff Park).

If I recall correctly, there was a massive argument about this in the early part of the 20th century. Fred Bowker aka Kingfisher was convinced this did NOT occur in Cape waters, whilst other flyfishers were. I might have this back to front, but there was a massive controversy at the time.

If you give trout the opportunity to follow their instinct, they most surely will.

[damage]

there are sea-run trout that were trek netted in false bay in the cps offices

I dont think they in the gretest shape but they definatly exist

/d

[nkula_nkula]

there are sea-run trout that were trek netted in false bay in the cps offices

I dont think they in the gretest shape but they definatly exist

/d

Agreed with denton here, there are pictures and other documentary evidence of rainbow trout being netted at muizenberg. They would meet definition of a steelhead...

[chris williams]

Interesting stuff, thanks guys!

Without myself getting overly pedantic on this, were the fish netted off Muizenberg - 'bows (i.e. steelheads) - or brownies (i.e. sea trout)?

I still havn't got around to re-researching my old books but it's all good historic stuff to inquire and to be inquisitive about - even if the actual facts may have been a tad diluted by time and overly fond memories/diary insertions.

In this day and age where we are all so spoilt 's'-less with ultra high tech equipment and technology, it's good to get back to the fireside discussions on recollections and other subjective unquantifiable trivia...

[nkula_nkula]

Interesting stuff, thanks guys!

Without myself getting overly pedantic on this, were the fish netted off Muizenberg - 'bows (i.e. steelheads) - or brownies (i.e. sea trout)?

I still havn't got around to re-researching my old books but it's all good historic stuff to inquire and to be inquisitive about - even if the actual facts may have been a tad diluted by time and overly fond memories/diary insertions.

In this day and age where we are all so spoilt 's'-less with ultra high tech equipment and technology, it's good to get back to the fireside discussions on recollections and other subjective unquantifiable trivia...

Only heard of rainbows...