THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Back out onto the loch, the dead-bait and lures were reset, and next up was Malcolm with an even more
beautiful twelve and a half pounder on the rainbow trout patterned rapala, and still with a good hour or
more to go before our lunch of jam butties and barely luke warm coffee.
Ron later had a third smaller specimen of around six pounds to the boat, which unfortunately slipped
the hook at the very last moment.
The remainder of the session produced nothing, as did the following day. But compared to thirteen
consecutive blanks, in ferox terms at least, this was an absolute fish fest. Not only had we caught two
amazing doubles, but both had gone to ferox virgins, neither of whom had even seen a ferox trout before.
Since then obviously, the groups expertise has come on in leaps and bounds. Shortly after our visit,
Alistair took the record up to nineteen pounds ten ounces on Loch Awe, a record which has since
climbed to thirty one pounds twelve ounces, again from Loch Awe, where even bigger fish are known
to exist, or to have existed, based on actual specimens from this huge and especially difficult water to
fish.
Indeed, I believe it was here that the thirteen consecutive blanks occurred, leading to the term 'relentless
group' being coined in recognition of the efforts both required and put in with regard to gaining more
knowledge of this enigmatic fish.
Loch Awe, as seemingly empty as it's vastness can appear at times, is the undoubted home of the biggest
ferox trout. It's also the most hospitable in terms of allowing people to fish, both from their own boats,
and from locally hired craft.
Phill Williams & Ron Greer, Ferox Trout Loch Rannoch
Many of the other highland lochs are
virtually un-fishable in that sense,
including Loch Rannoch which
produced my fish, and where Ferox 85
have negotiated access for their work.
But let's not forget the deep Cumbrian
lakes, most of which also have ferox
trout.
Windermere fairly regularly produces
them to pike anglers baits. We also
deliberately took a nine pound ferox
on Crummock Water from a hired
boat, and I had my best ever pike on a
ferox outing to Coniston.
The key to ferox potential is having
small shoaling fish to feed on, which usually means char, but could be anything providing the numbers
of prey items are there, including other brown trout.
Currently, ferox trout are generally viewed as being individual brown trout offspring which turn to fish
feeding at a very early age, breed far less frequently than their typical more generalist feeding siblings,
and can far out-live them too, with I believe, ages in excess of twenty years having been recorded.
Some scientists one the other hand think that ferox trout breed true, and as such are a separate species,
or at the very least, a sub species. The same is also suggested for the various ferox-like trout in some of
the bigger Irish loughs. On the other hand, huge cannibalistic brown trout have been taken from man
made English reservoirs where they can't be anything other than Salmo trutta.
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