WFD Mitigations Project, Environmental Monitoring Service

For decades the sea trout has been overshadowed by the salmon in terms of both research and fisheries management, but that is about to change with the start of the Celtic Sea Trout Project. Although this project is mainly focussed on Welsh and Irish sea trout rivers, we have been able to include rivers of the Isle of Man, Solway and North West of England including the Lune.

The research will start to examine what happens to sea trout when they are at sea – an ambitious aim, but with the help and support of all the organisations and anglers involved then we’ll make more headway than has been achieved for decades.

As part of the project, we’re asking anglers on selected rivers including the Lune to provide scale samples from the sea trout that they catch. We appreciate that many sea trout are released when caught, but we just ask that if you are going to keep your sea trout, please provide us with a sample of scales from the fish’s back, along with accurate length and weight measurements. We can provide sample envelopes and a tape measure.

These will tell us a lot about the fish’s age and growth, both in the river and especially at sea.

Other parts of the project will be genetic analysis to allow the “fingerprinting” of sea trout from different rivers, and marine and coastal surveys to try to find sea trout in the sea.

Lune Rivers Trust members have volunteered to help with the project, by promoting it on our website and helping distribute the sample envelopes and equipment.