Stale Salmon

huddlejonny

Been out fishing the same spot over the last few days on the Lee and I have noticed a big increase in Salmon rising.

In particular there is the same Salmon in a pool who is jumping all the time. I got chatting to a Salmon angler with a fly rod as he was passing and he said the Salmon was probably stale.

Can anyone elaborate on what he meant by stale. I found it interesting that the Salmon angler showed no interest in trying to catch this fish and moved on. I reckon he was in or around 10lb.

Mr Bumble

Stale usually means the salmon has been in the river for some time.

thefisherbuy

huddlejonny wrote: »

Been out fishing the same spot over the last few days on the Lee and I have noticed a big increase in Salmon rising.

In particular there is the same Salmon in a pool who is jumping all the time. I got chatting to a Salmon angler with a fly rod as he was passing and he said the Salmon was probably stale.

Can anyone elaborate on what he meant by stale. I found it interesting that the Salmon angler showed no interest in trying to catch this fish and moved on. I reckon he was in or around 10lb.

A stale salmon is browner that lets say a fresh salmon just off the tide because he's been in the river for a while the more the fish stays in the river, the browner colour he gets, just a thought but maybe he could be a farmed fish there's been a good few caught around the place just a thought though, if I where you maybe just go to the river before night and see what colour he is etc..

Zzippy

Fresh salmon = silver, stale salmon = brown/red/mottled colour. Depends how long it's been in the river, but most decent anglers would put back a stale fish if they caught it. Taking "unseasonable" fish is an offence under the Fisheries Act, but unseasonable is not clearly defined AFAIR.