I had no idea they farm trouts. I could not call on an image in my mind of trouts standing neatly in rows on a field. Or maybe swimming in little baskets on a row. How does one farm trouts?
Simple, they have huge concrete bassins, and a lake, and that is where it all happens.

Someone takes the eggs of the furtile momma fishes, the eggs are posted in the beginning bassin, where they hatch (not sure if fish eggs hatch...)
As they grow they are put in bigger and bigger bassins, to end up in the biggest one, where then the eggs will be harvested.

We did see some HUGE fish... I think that some of them could weigh up to four kilo. 8 Pound. Good size...

And if I would have had my polarizer filter, I could have shot the fish with no glare, if you shoot in water, the polarizer acts like a magic wand, taking the glare away and showing you only the content of the water. Not this grey-yellow muddled image you see above.

We were lucky the day we visited the farm, as a guy was just feeding them. Not an ordinary thing to do. Imagine a 50 kilo bag with pink pellets, he takes out a huge scoop and throws it in the water, and life becomes hectic.

Fish almost jump out of the water, splashing and more splashing, Big shadows under water, I would not put my finger in, the biggest ones could easily hold your thumb in their mouth. I know they don’t have teeth, but why take a risk?

They are lovely animals, with red coloured bellies, elegantly moving in a ballet like way in the water. They seem to have fun. I bet they have their own trout conversations.
With a lot of gossip... When huge crowds are around, gossip is what happens. And strong peer pressure. No kidding.

On the lake side, when the fish start to splash out of harmony, the ducks soon arrive, with food pellets in their eyes. They know that food is around and want their part of it.
They don’t mind it is fish food. Ducks have simple reasonings. I heard one say : “If it’s good for the fish, it’s good for us. After all, the fish eat the pellets, we eat the fish, so we can aswell directly go for the pellets, as fish often give us heart burn”.

If I ask the fish feeding man about war zones he answers me that fish and ducks live together, but the biggest trouts dare go for a duckling when it is just out of the duck maternity. I can hear the soundtrack of “Shark” in my mind. Watch it ducks, see the black shadows? They will come after you...

All of a sudden I notice a strange little beaked thingie on the water. Tiny, with a pointy beak, greyish white feathers. Hmm, not a duck for sure. What is it?
The answer swims a couple of seconds on starboard.

I wonder if they are water hens. I have seen those tuccedo wearing birds before, but never before a young one. Very nice.
Dressed to kill... We all know that a sharp dressed man is what we want.

A duck comes up to me and tells me to not pay too much attention to the tux ones... They are vain enough already as it is.
“We, the normal ducks have a far better character, even if we are slightly underdressed...”

We follow the feeding guy to the biggest bassin, with the monster swimmers. HUGE...

It’s not nice when the food hits the water surface. The otherwise calm trouts change in to pellet eating killing fish. It’s for the fast ones.
The food has no time to sink to the bottom. It’s war between ducks and fish again...

The feeding guy is done, he has been feeding for four hours, and that happens twice a day, I do not envy his job.

He tells me en passant that the biggest are almost ready for eggs. They will be taken to the white house on the other side of the lake, get sedated, and their eggs harvested.
When waking up, they have no clue of what happened, an alien process really. Before they get sold to whoever wants trouts. Fishing clubs, nature reserves, they all stock up on trouts in this tiny village.
I wonder how they sedate fish, does each one of them gets a little IV hooked up, laid flat on a table, with surgeons around?
Nope, feeding guy spills the beeeeenzzz: they pump a mild sedative in the water, so the fish are loopy for a short time, they pick them out, harvest the eggs - don’t ask - I did not want to know how the harvesting goes - and by the time the sedation has worked off they are back where they were before. In the big bassin, fighting for food again...
He hastens to add that trout are very very sensitive, they don’t want upset fish, and that is the reason why they treat them with the utter most care.
Sigh, I know so much and at the same time I know nothing... The world still has so many things that I have not seen or heard off, it’s true: travels make you smarter.
Before Mr Wonderful found me I used to travel with books, nicely hampered up under a blanket in my living room. The real travel is appealing though.
I love it. And now I can stripe off “visit trout farm” of my bucket list...

Mr Wonderful ends the visit with a trout salad... I go for a jacket potato. We will be on our way soon to another little corner of the Cotswolds.
Later!



















































































































