Lake-run brown trout near Lake Geneva

Switzerland is not good to its rivers. Armored banks, flow disruptions, and cows everywhere. But there are still some fish, and it's the time of year for the best of the bunch.

I'm on the lookout for Salmo trutta lacrustis, the lake form of brown trout. They spawn in rivers, move down to a lake (like Lake Geneva) and then come home again to spawn as BIG adults. They act like salmon, and they can be as big as salmon.

Caught in 1926 in Switzerland's Lake Maggiore, this near-record lake-run brown trout (left) was 31 kg (68 pounds)! Unverified catches have been reported up to 41 kg (92 pounds), or perhaps bigger, up to 50 kg.

Lake Geneva brown trout were mentioned by Izaak Walton in his classic The Compleat Angler, and it's the right time of year to see some of the big adults coming upstream to spawn.

I'm been prowling the Promenthouse for the last 2 weeks, and yesterday I was led by Susan Brown to the Aubonne River (top right) for a better chance of seeing these great fish.

The Aubonne River was too high for jumping brown trout, last week's snow and rain the last two days had combined for high water. We did see some BIG fish milling around the base of the dam and the bottom of the fish ladder. Enough to pique my interest. I'll keep watching as the flows recede, although tomorrow's rain forecast could charge up the flows again.

The Aubonne River photo above right is where the river goes over a small dam, and it's good fish-watching because it's bad for fish. They pummel themselves against the structure, with about zero chance of success. There is a fish ladder around the dam, but it looks like a bad design and the fish don't seem to be very attracted to it.

These are the same fish we planted in local streams a couple of months ago. But I also hope to find some evidence of wild spawning.

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Saving trout in Switzerland

I was invited by a local fishing club to help save trout Swiss-style. It was an interesting and fun exercise in stocking trout, with kids invited along for the fun and education.

We went first to the St. Prex fish farm where the St. Prex fishing club raises lake trout and brown trout for planting in local streams. The trout are raised and planted by volunteers, with the supervision of the gardes-peche (fish guards). The operation was not totally streamlined, there was the typical Swiss concern for doing things "properly."

Our group collected 4000 fingerling (7-10 cm) trout and off we went with the trout in the back of the car, bubbling with oxygen and chilled. We were headed for the best stream in Gland, the Promenthouse, home of the Societe de pêche la Promenthouse, near the site of the medieval village of the same name that once had 500 people but was wiped out by the plague and never repopulated. It's a pretty little stream, but a western US eye says the watershed could use a bit of restoration and fencing to keep the cows out of the streams.

We divided the fish into buckets, carried them down to the stream, and placed them in small groups in fishy-looking places. The kids were absolutely overjoyed, and we definitely saw some kids upping their interest in fish, streams, etc.

The Lake Geneva brown trout was mentioned by Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler, and human involvement with this stock of fish goes w-a-a-a-y back. Switzerland is an intensively used landscape, with people and farms just about everywhere they can be. And the trout are still here, so let's not ask too many questions about how and why.

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