double trouble

Tim Rimell’s experience of playing one trout only to find it was being attacked by another [Letters, November issue], is similar to mine. In February 2018, on the magnificent Rangitikei River in New Zealand, I had hooked what I took to be a modestsized rainbow, only to find I was actually playing a brown trout of 5lb. At first I thought the brown was suffering from some sort of deformity of its head until I realised that I was actually playing two fish. Sadly, when the fish had been brought into the shallows and my guide, Steve Mattocks, tried to land them both, the brown let go and only the rainbow came ashore. It was released unharmed.

In 60 years of fishing for trout it was the first time this had happened to me, while Steve has guided on the Rangitikei for more than 20 years and has never experienced this before.

John Milford, by email