Looking for gold amongst the rainbows.

I popped down to Markle Fisheries near East Linton last week to try and catch a rudd to move my 2012 freshwater species tally one closer to my goal. With water temps dropping I knew it would be tough and was quite annoyed with myself for not popping down earlier in the year to target them. The bait pond there contains loads of them and in the past I've caught quite a few of them on maggots. When they are in the mood you can catch a rudd a cast on the drop which is quite good fun if not very challenging. They are pretty little fish and look similar to roach, the main differences being an upturned mouth, a golden tinge to there colouration, their dorsal fin is set further back than a roach and their fins are normally a deeper shade of orange or red.

Here's one I caught earlier. July 2011 in fact!

Anyway I started fishing in a small bay where there are some overhanging trees, the roots of which normally hold some rudd. Fishing was very slow to say the least and as the day went on I began to think I wasn't going to catch anything when my waggler float disappeared. Striking into the fish I knew almost straight away it was a trout and after a short fight it was in the net. I have to be honest and say that rainbow trout aren't my favourite fish. Brutish eating machines, they lack the finesse and in my opinion the beauty of other members of the salmonoid family. Of course they are not a native species and the ones in fisheries are farm bred so I'm sure this has a lot to do with their appearance and also their voracious appetites.

I'd love to catch a wild one "across the pond". I'm sure in their natural environment they're just as nice as our native brown trout.

Shortly afterwards my float bobbed a couple of times before slowly dissappearing. This made me think it could be a rudd but unfortunately it was another trout. With only an hour or so left I decided to work my way around the pond to try and locate some rudd. This didn't produce any though and a third trout would be my final action of the session and I left resigned to the fact that realistically I may not manage to get a rudd before the end of the year and also may struggle to get the two additonal species I need to reach my target of 15 freshwater species this year.

Tight lines, Scott.