trout on redds

[whinging pom]

...after wittering on and on here about going down to our little brook with my Real Estate Agent hat on to search for likely gravels for redds
( depth of water, flow rate, depth of gravel, profile of stream base, ease of access to the bankside for the fry and available fry habitat close down stream )
And then after selecting the most likely of those gravels, going down to clean with a volunteers little work party.
I thought id share the joy!

This is one of the areas i selected for some cleaning and Thankfully Mrs B Trout ( aged 2 year +) and some passing bloke shed dragged in, agreed it was a perfect place to bring up the kids, nice flow rate and lots of good fry habitat near by for the sprogs to learn and survive life in a brook.

She had been spotted holding that spot about an hour and a half earlier, with the odd male hanging around in the fringes. By the time i got back it was all but over and lt looks like she got two or three nests down in that Redd with her selected beau. 2 minutes later they set off up hopefully to survive the winter.

Of the 9 females ive spotted so far holding a selected spot this year:-
3 are on areas we cleaned,
1 on a area we started cleaning and rejected as not enough gravel
1 on an area adjacent to where we cleaned( i just missed it by a few feet)
1 on a small patch i'd dug down with my wader boot to check the gravel depth and size and rejected it
1 picked a place i had missed in the verges of a bend that i thought was too quick.
2 rejected my ideas completely and found some lovely looking Des Res Id completely missed.

It does seem like the exercise of cleaning the gravels has attracted them, hopefully its increased the odds for the eggs hatching too. So much is a leap of faith.
timing wise we are two weeks later than we were when i first saw them breeding a dozen years back.

all the best to all
WPom

[Paul Arden]

Fantastic!!!!