To the west of the village of Glenridding close Ullswater in North Cumbria stands Helvellyn. At 3117 feet, this is England's third highest mountain. With either the infamous striding edge to negotiate to get to and from the summit, it is also one of Britain's most popular climbs. Well, to hill walkers it is. Its a different story when you have a pack on your back loaded with fishing tackle and a pile of warm clothing to go with it. It is however well worth the effort, because tucked in tight to the vertical face of the last stage of the ascent, and flanked by striding edge and swirral edge is Red Tarn, the highest altitude water in England containing fish. But not just any fish. Some of the most beautifully marked wild brown trout you are ever likely to see, plus one of Britain's rarest and most enigmatic freshwater fish species, the Schelly. So rare in fact that it is protected under Schedule 5 of the 1975 Wildlife and Countryside Act.

Schelly is the English name for the whitefish species Coregonus lavaretus. In Scotland they call it the powan, and in Wales the gwyniad. But don't let this lull you into thinking it is a widespread species, because it isn't. Far from it in fact. Only five waters in the UK officially contain schelly, though I know for a fact that some of the Ullswater fish have made it through to nearby Brothers Water as I've seen a dead on in the margins. Britain's other whitefish species the vendace or pollan is even rarer, though it isn't caught on rod and line. The big question is what are schelly doing in Red Tarn. Several thousand years ago at the end of the last ice age when the glaciers were in full retreat, a number of glacial relict species including whitefish and char entered many of the lakes surrounding the Irish Sea basin, but now survive in only a handful where conditions are favourable. But so far as schellies go, Red Tarn should not be on that list.

Unlike trout which given time and suitable flood water conditions can climb even the steepest beck, schellies are not strong swimmers and would struggle to make it up the steep incline of Red Tarn beck connecting Ullswater to Red Tarn. On top of this, the beck in too shallow and at times barely more than a trickle. So mystery surrounds the Red Tarn population, though I did read somewhere that a sect of monks living in the area during the middle ages may have introduced it as a Friday food supplement, though this has never been confirmed. Whatever the reason, schellies are there, and judging by the numbers and size of the fish I have caught, are doing very well. I would though add at this point that all the deliberate schelly fishing, photography and video footage gathering was done prior to the schellies inclusion into the Wildlife & Countryside Act.

Red Tarn is what's known as an oligotrophic lake. That is a lake poor in nutrients and of low productivity, though you might not think so looking at the fitness and fatness of some of the brown trout it contains. Frequently inundated with snow melt, and prone to winter freezing, you would not expect anything much to do well at such altitude. Yet in the summer I have seen frog spawn in its margins and witnessed quite sizable surface forays by the trout gorging on bonus influxes of wind blown terrestrials. But outside of that, these fish spend a great deal of their time grubbing about for food on the bottom, which is not unexpectedly the best place to be fishing for them. Forget fanciful ideas about fly fishing. Three maggots on a size 10 hook flicked out onto a carpet of ground bait and maggots, or attached to a swim feeder rig is the best pathway to success.

What we would normally do was look for a perch overlooking deep water and set up camp there. After the long walk up, even in wintery conditions, you can have sweat rolling down your back, particularly if you have been carrying a rucksack. This very quickly goes cold, even on a summers day. Cloud cover, wind and rain are all regular features of fishing Red Tarn. We've even made the ascent in deep snow and have been caught out by blizzards. I was once up there is early June when it snowed. So take plenty of warm clothes and do set up a camp. But the first job when you arrive is to get the loose feed in. Then leave that to gather up the fish while you sort out the rest of the gear.

As you would expect, the margins of the tarn are very rocky with patches of shallow peaty ground here and there. So getting rod rests to stick in is not always possible which can make life difficult depending on the type of bite indicator you choose to use. Mine is a small bell taken from one of those peg things that you occasionally see anglers on piers using. The bell itself is removed and glued to the business end of a cable tie. This is the hooked over a belly of line stretched out between the first eye and the reel with the bale arm open. No need to watch your rod. You can hear the bell tinkling across the rock surface or stones from many yards away. And when you pick the rod up to hit a running fish, the bell falls clear onto the ground.

Brown trout are the dominant species here. Every one I've ever caught has been under a pound, though some have probably pushed three quarters of a pound. Some of the schellies can also be small. But surprisingly, not all of them. Some of them have getting up three quarters of a pound too. I can recall a couple of visits that failed to produce a schelly, but not many. They probably come at the ratio of one for every dozen or so trout, with the most we've ever had in a single sitting, which normally lasts about four hours with all the climbing and driving to put into the equation, being two. But to be honest, once you'd had one and have ticked it off the wanted species list, it didn't matter much who caught the next. It was just such a privilege to see one, on top of which, the trout were reason enough to be up there anyway.

SEE VIDEO VAULT – Red Tarn