In the 2004 series Trout ’n About, Paul Campion and Gregory Rankine visit Drummond Trout Farm and Fishery near Comrie.
Jim Miller is assistant fishery manager, and an expert on rainbow trout. In each of the tanks there are about 12,500 young rainbow trout, and overall the farm has 230,000 fish.
Every six or seven minutes an automatic feeder adds soya meal to the tanks, along with proteins and vitamins. It takes around 18 months for a rainbow trout to reach one pound in weight. As the fish grow, they are moved from tanks to ponds, where paddle wheels increase the aeration and create currents, simulating conditions where the trout would swim upstream in a river. The rainbow was introduced from North America, and is very resilient.
The local osprey drops in twice a day, for breakfast and supper. Overhead predator lines keep the bird out of the farm itself, but it helps itself from the main fishery.
Paul then shows how to tie an orange Fritz fly, “probably one of the most deadly lures in fishing”.
(The fishery and shop closed at the end of 2006; the fish farm remains open.)
www.fishingnet.com/drummond.htm
www.drummondtroutfarm.co.uk/
