Join the Wild Trout Trust

Meon wooded banks
Cumbrian trout 1

Help our practical work to improve habitat for trout and all wildlife.

Members of the Wild Trout Trust are a community of like-minded people with an interest in preserving and improving the rivers and lakes that they love.

Become a member today to support a conservation charity that gets things done in a practical way. We have a small team of highly committed expert Conservation Officers who all work from home.

Your membership fee will go directly towards our work of improving our lakes and rivers, their trout and lots of other wildlife.

Membership benefits

In addition to being part of community of like minded people, membership benefits include: 

  • WTT’s excellent annual journal, Salmo Trutta and information-packed newsletters
  • Members-only trout and grayling fishing events on exclusive beats
  • Meeting friends and making new fishing friends at our annual get-together 
  • Discounts with Sportfish, Farlows and Snowbee

Our journal, Salmo Trutta is a high quality printed magazine with a mix of articles about rivers, science, wildlife and fishing. The 2020 edition was also published as an e‑zine.

Our members newsletters are packed with information about our work. They are printed and posted to members. Take a look at this low resolution PDF example from Autumn 2020 due to the Covid pandemic..

The Wild Trout Trust Annual Get Together

The Wild Trout Trust hold an Annual Get-Together’ weekend, held in different locations around the country in the spring each year. Around 80 or 90 people attend each year, along with the WTT Conservation team and invited guests from the local area. 

One of things I love about the WTT Get-Together is that it is relaxed and informal. It combines really interesting talks (not too many) and expert guided river walks with plenty of time to chat and socialise.

The Annual Get-Together moves location around the country and generally takes place in April or May. These weekends are designed to give people a chance to meet and chat with like-minded trouty types, listen to some inspiring talks on work in the patch and then fish some of the local rivers. 

As an example, here is an outline of our 2019 meeting near Two Bridges on Dartmoor.

Friday evening: meet for a drink in a local pub.
Saturday morning: a series of interesting talks in the Dartmoor Field Centre on the banks of the River Dart, followed by some outdoor river bank activities and demonstrations. 
Lunch, tea and coffee were provided at a cost of £10.
Saturday evening: barbecue on the river bank 
Sunday: fishing on nearby rivers and streams, courtesy of the Westcountry Rivers Trust fishing passport. 

Members can join us for as much or as little of the weekend as they wish. 

In 2020, due to the pandemic, we held a Virtual Get-Together on Fishing TV. Some of the programmes from the day are available on our YouTube channel.
Highlights include Paul Procter sampling invertebrates, Jon Beer discussing trout spawning lakes, Trout in the Town with Theo Pike and Paul Gaskell, fly fishing for barbel, Joe Crowley talking to Charles Rangeley-Wilson about chalkstream restoration and photographer and film maker Jack Perks on freshwater fish. 

Dart
Our 2019 Get-Together was on the banks of the River Dart

Fishing Weekends

We generally hold two members only’ fishing weekends each year. These are immensely popular and give our members the opportunity to meet up and fish together, with some expert local guidance on hand if needed. 

The trout fishing weekend is generously donated by the Haddon Estate on the Derbyshire Wye. The Haddon waters are all wild brown and rainbow trout- the Derbyshire Wye is the only UK river with long established, self-sustaining population of wild rainbow trout as well as brown trout.

The grayling weekend changes location each year. It was held on the River Itchen in 2017, the River Test in 2018 and the River Kennet in 2019. The fishing is primarily on exclusive beats and is kindly donated by our supporters. 

For both the trout and grayling weekends we charge around £50 per day per angler. The funds raised are used to support our habitat work.