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Fast Water, Wild Browns
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
I've been itching to do some fast water fishing for ages and with overcast conditions and light rain forecast it was time to head to the upper reaches of the Meander River for a spin session. I was still unsure of how accurate the BOM forecast was, seeing as they haven't got it right all that often lately. Anyway, when I arrived at the river the cloud cover was still overhead but there were already signs of it breaking up, something that wasn't supposed to happen until late afternoon.
It was 8:10am by the time I was in the river and the water level was running at 65cm, which was good, though I would have preferred it to be running at 60-55cm. I know 5-10cm doesn't sound like much, however when fishing rocky fast water runs it makes a lot of difference. For starters there's less water pressure on the legs and also the deeper pockets of water, that are between knee and waist deep, are much easier and safer to get through. There's also more flat waters along the sides of the river, that will be holding trout and the trout are much easier to find with the water level being 5-10cm lower. Well that's how I find it anyway and my stats that I've kept over the years show that my catch rate is much higher with the river running at the 55-60cm level.
The river here is perfect for the cast and drift method that I love doing. It's a great way to catch a trout. The lure I started the session off with was a #1 Mepps Aglia Furia and I had a soft hit on the second cast but missed hooking up on what felt like a small trout. I had a few more casts with the Furia spinner and felt it was a little heavy for fishing here. It was bottom bouncing too much for my liking, so changed to a #0 Mepps Stone Fly coloured Bug spinner.
Even with the dull conditions I felt that the dark coloured (Black) Bug spinner would be the better colour spinner to use, with the river being so clear. It didn't take all that long to catch the first trout either. This fish was taken when I flicked the lure up the river into a small flat water, located near the river bank and around five meters ahead of me. I barely had time to turn the reel handle and a solid trout took the Bug and darted straight out into the fast water in an attempt to toss the lure. It played hard to get for a couple of minutes in the fast water, making several runs and leaps before it finally tired and I slipped the net under it. It was a gem of a fish to catch first up too. A nice well-conditioned brown that weighed 560 grams.
It wasn't all that easy fishing my way up the river, due to the rocky river bottom being slippery. The rocks were covered in a brown algae and even the spiked felt soled wading boots weren't holding. To make matters worse, the rocks were loose under foot as well, so the going was tough. I stayed to the left hand side of the river, seeing it was the safest place to wade with it being so slippery. I did have to slowly make my way out to the middle of the river a few times though, due to the spinner attaching itself to small twigs and branches in the river. Most of these can't be seen as they're underwater.
This is just a part of what happens when fishing the fast waters and it happens every now and then, even more so when using the cast and drift method. Taking it slow and easy as I fished my way upstream, I had more hits from several small browns, before hooking and losing two of them. I thought it was time to try another Mepps spinner and this time I went for the #0 Aglia Fluo in the brown colour, a lure that's not too bright to turn the trout away from it in the clear water.
It didn't take long before I had a hit and miss on it and that was the last touch from a trout on it for ten minutes. It wasn't until I made a long, low, backhand cast into a flat water, on the opposite side of the river that had low hanging tea trees above it, when a trout took the lure. This was a nice, medium size brown and like the trout caught earlier it headed straight into the fast water to try and toss the lure. The lure held the fish as it made a few leaps from the river, before it tired and I had it in the landing net. I was reasonably happy with two trout being caught, however would be satisfied with at least half a dozen being caught and released before the end of the spin session.
I continued to slowly fish my way upstream. I was really struggling to stay upright in the river, due to the slippery rocks of all shapes and sizes moving underfoot. It was starting to place havoc with my right hip. I had taken a few painkillers and put eight large heat patches on my lower back and right hip to help get me through a few hours of fast water fishing. The good thing was that an hour into the session the lower back was still okay at this stage, so I pushed on.
After losing another trout and having a few more hits and misses on the Aglia Fluo spinner, I decided to give a small #00 Gold Aglia a go on the trout. It took a while but I eventually caught my third trout, a small 270 gram brown that fell to the gold spinner. Once released, I went back to the #0 Stone Fly Bug spinner and this time I wasn't going to change lures again, I had decided to stay with this spinner to the end.
It was a good decision after all because I went on to catch another three quality size brown trout on it. Though trout number six did take a lot longer than I had wanted, after catching the fifth trout I had made my mind up that I wasn't getting out the river until I had landed number six. It took one hour and forty minutes to catch the sixth trout, and on the way to catching it I hooked and lost three trout, so I really did earn the last fish of the day. The fish weighed 475 grams, making it the second best trout of the day. I was totally buggered by the time I caught it, but also happy with the end result. Now all I had was a twenty minute walk back to the car to contend with.
Equipment used on various trout trips:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg trout rods
Okuma LRF Spin Rods - Split Grip 1-3kg
Okuma Inspira Blue Spin Reels - ISX-20B
Okuma Helios SX Spin Reels - HSX-20
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reels - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar Spin Reels - C-10
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament Fishing Line
Platypus Pre-Test Monofilament Fishing Line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Boomerang Tool Products
Adrian (meppstas)