salmo
Advisory Board
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Post by salmo on Oct 13, 2007 16:16:24 GMT
Hugh Falkus once said "that the salmon and sea trout have one thing in common and that is the contents of their stomach - which have nothing in them"
There is a common belief that salmon stop eating once they migrate from the sea and travel in fresh water in our rivers.
What do you believe based on what you have read and what you have experienced?
salmo
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Speyducer
Advisory Board
Release to spawn another day
Posts: 4,123
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Post by Speyducer on Oct 13, 2007 16:48:25 GMT
www.atlanticsalmontrust.org/salmon_facts/feeding.htmlDo salmon feed in fresh water?As juveniles, salmon feed in their native rivers, and after smolting and migration to sea they continue to feed, principally on crustaceans and fish. Adult salmon do not feed in fresh water, although, very rarely, parr have been found in their stomachs at spawning time. I don't think you get more definitive than the above. Thus, any theories regarding the taking of flies, lures, spinners, and other objects in fresh water, for Atlantic salmon, must be based on behaviour NOT related to taking foodstuffs into their mouth for biological sustenance (feeding). Mike
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fruity
Active Member
Posts: 425
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Post by fruity on Oct 13, 2007 16:49:37 GMT
I do not think salmon are consciously able to decide to stop killing and consuming, I am quite sure they go through a physical and mental change which gradually diminishes their normal habit/instinct to kill and consume.
It is known that the fresher a fish is from the sea, the more likely it is to take a lure or bait. Worm fishers will widely attest to the deep hooking of fish because the salmon has taken the worm and swallowed it in such a way that it would be described as feeding, natural or artificial shrimp fishers will also attest to salmon being hooked in the throat and beyond, such would not happen if it the salmon did not have a desire to consume the object.
Since objects are taken and swallowed in a way I would describe as feeding, I consider salmon do feed in fresh water. Whether they are able to digest and take sustenance from the food is something I do not know.
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conwyrod
Advisory Board
Autumn on the Conwy
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Post by conwyrod on Oct 13, 2007 16:59:11 GMT
Can't speak from personal experience, but I've often read that salmon have been seen taking natural flies from the surface of rivers like the Test and Itchen. Feeding? Don't know, might be curiosity?
I've also heard that sea trout, that have been in the river for a while, will feed on naturals. Bear in mind that Falkus fished the Cumbrian Esk, which had little fly life.
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Post by Roobarb on Oct 13, 2007 18:09:25 GMT
Salmon must take all manner of things while in the river, it would be ridiculous to think they only took lures and baits attached to an anglers line. Yet how many of us has ever found anything in a salmons stomach, they must spit nearly everything back out again (or blow stuff out the back of the gills). I've also heard that sea trout, that have been in the river for a while, will feed on naturals. Bear in mind that Falkus fished the Cumbrian Esk, which had little fly life. It's not just sea trout that have been in a while that take natural flies. I've seen fresh run sea trout taking grannom in April on the R. Axe in Devon. These are usually ready takers of a dry fly, especially at dusk. It is very noticable that the bigger ones have nothing in their guts even though you can clearly see them taking flies, the smaller ones (under 2lb) can have relatively full stomachs. The bigger fish seem to be taking out of habit but clearly aren't swallowing. Last weekend while trotting for dace/grayling on the Frome with maggot I picked up 9 sea trout between 1lb and 4lb, I think they must have been feeding. Note: float fished maggot is a legal lure on this river and they are still in season. Andy
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Post by tynetraveller on Oct 13, 2007 18:54:12 GMT
In order for any animal to live, it must use less energy in searching for food than it can gain by eating the available food. In a fresh water river an adult salmon is very unlikely to be able to achieve this.
Add to this that eating your own juveniles ( A large part of the likely available food) is not a great evolutionary tactic and I believe that salmon do not hunt in fresh water.
If a high energy food happens to waft past their nose, however, Then that is a different matter- In this case there is little energy expended in taking advantage of it.
As others have said, Salmon eat worms, they take flies deep. It would seem odd to think that they only eat these things when they are attached to our lines...
I would suggest that they don't eat much,and are accustomed and evolved to not eating in fresh water, because there is very little worth their while to eat in the river environment- Which is not to say that they will not snatch the odd tasty morsel should the chance present itself..
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salmo
Advisory Board
Posts: 1,814
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Post by salmo on Oct 16, 2007 18:28:18 GMT
I have seen a salmon take a fly off the surface on the Dee in the bridge pool at Dinnet. Every time I drive over Dinnet bridge I stop and admire the river. Both looking upstream at Ministers and at the Bridge Pool itself.
A few years back I leased Deecastle for the 1st week in July we would fish early mornings an late evenings. Some of our sea trout pals would join us later on in the evening to fish the Bobbies and Logie.
I was standing on the bridge with my fishing partner and I said that I had stopped countless time to examine the lie but had only once seen a fish rise there. I always maintained that so many fishers peered over the bridge that the fish simply hid when startled. We stood bolt still for at least 5 minutes. There is a rock slab directly below bridge with a gorge cut through. The is a lie just under the sharp rock and I was pointing this out when all of a sudden a salmon came out sideways from under the slab and straight up and took a fly off the surface. This water was a good 6ft deep and very clear. If we were not there just at that minute we would not have believed it.
My friends father in law grew up in Banchory and he used to watch the salmon climbing the falls at Bridge of Feugh. He once saw a salmon come up and take a large butterfly off the surface in the same way.
salmo
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tweedsider
Active Member
Quietness is best
Posts: 993
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Post by tweedsider on Oct 16, 2007 21:11:20 GMT
Some years ago I cast for two hours to a steadily rising Tweed trout, this fish was without a doubt feeding on surface olives. The trout turned out to be a five pound sea trout after it succumbed to a dry GRHE. A brown trout feeding for the same period would have been stuffed with flies, this fish contained two and some body oddments of wings and legs. On a different theme a friend who has spent a lifetime in the Tweed netting industry and in that time will have gutted thousands of salmon, has only seen a handful of estuary caught fish containing any foodstuffs. Surely if a large predatory fish were feeding in fresh water thay would in a short time decimate their own blood lines. It remains a mystery to me why a salmon should seize a lure in freshwater, there must be many other water borne objects tested and rejected by a salmon during its freshwater sojourn, only the fact that our water borne object is attached to a hook gives evidence that the event has taken place. Yet, another poster has recorded finding a salmon grabbing a parr, and I have read an account of someone having watched a salmon chew a minnow to pulp before rejecting it.
Tweedsider
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