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Tannin Water Trout Hard to Find

By Adrian (meppstas) Webb

This report covers two consecutive days fishing tannin waters after some decent rains that got the streams up and running to a good fishing height once again.

Day One

The first trip was the morning after we had 26mm of rain the day before and into the night. Once at the river I found it to be running at a nice height and a very dark tannin colour. Several weeks ago I fished this same little tannin stream and had a good four days of fishing in it. I was hoping for the same result again this trip.

I was in the water at 8:20am and started off with a #00 Mepps White Miller Bug spinner, the same little one that had done a good job in the dark tannin water here before. The area that I started off in was the upper reaches and the last trip here (7th March) I caught and released thirteen trout. Even though the water was a little higher and faster flowing, it was still good enough to be holding trout in flat water on both sides of it.

I slowly fished my way upstream, casting the Bug into the flat waters on both sides of the stream and waiting for a strike as I retrieved the lure each time. Nothing happened, not a single touch from a trout... not even a bow wave behind the spinner. The trout weren't here.

I kept at it until just on 9:00am, without having a hit. In the end all that I managed was a follow in a wide flat water and that's as far as it went. I had fished around three hundred metres of water, trying a variety of Mepps spinners. It was now time to try another area on this stream and I decided to head to one of my favourite stretches of water, a kilometre and a half downstream.

By the time I walked back to the car and drove to where I wanted to fish, then walked to the stream, it was 9:35am. The area that I was fishing was more open and shallower than the area I had just left and it was here that I was hoping to break what could finish up being a 'donut' day... something that all fishos dread.

I started off with the Bug here as well and only used it for a few minutes, without success, before changing to a #00 Gold Aglia spinner. Not all that long after the change of lure, I cast the spinner into a small flat water that had some debris next to it and I had my first hook up of the morning. I was stoked. My first trout of the day was on... and that's where it ended. That little trout made a leap from the river and out popped the lure!

It was less than ten minutes later, with a backhand cast into a small flat water and a nice little brown snapped up the Gold Aglia. This time it stayed on and I finally had the first trout of the day. The drought was broken... as was the 'donut' day. Well that was the last fish hooked for quite some time and it wasn't until I changed over to the #00 March Brown Bug spinner that I drew the attention of a small brown in a shallow flat water. That little brown didn't hesitate to take the Bug and I had my second trout of the day landed, thirty minutes after the first trout was caught.

A little further up and I had a couple of follows, before another brown was caught and released at 10:55am. With the trout being so few and far between, I thought it was time to call it a day and head back here tomorrow afternoon to start off from where I finished today. By tomorrow afternoon the water level would have dropped a little and I was hoping that would bring on a few trout... well that's if there were any in the area.

Day Two

The conditions were still quite good for trout fishing on day two, with light winds, plenty of cloud and quite cool. The water level in the stream had dropped by a couple of inches as well. It was close to 2:00pm by the time I hit the river, where I spent a few minutes watching a resident platypus drifting along in the tannin water.

This trip I started off with the same set up that I finished with yesterday, the March Brown Bug spinner. It only took fifteen minutes this time, to catch the first trout. A solid 330 gram brown was taken with a backhand cast directly up a narrow heavy foliage covered stretch of knee deep water.

This was the start that I wanted and I was hoping for it to continue on like this for the next couple of hours or so. Six minutes on and I was onto another trout. This one was a smaller fish and like the one caught earlier, it was a very aggressive take. What looked like being a good day on the trout soon turned sour as the trout were hardly seen after those two fish. They were very few and far between.

I did have the odd follow and light hit and miss, before I hooked and lost one in a large, deep open pool. I wasn't all that far from the car now and knew that I was wasting my time fishing on any further, so pulled the pin at 3:35pm. It had been twenty days since I had last fished this stretch of water and on that day I caught and released fifteen trout. This just goes to show how a stream can change in such a short time.

Adrian (meppstas)

Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg trout rod
Okuma Inspira Blue Spin Reels - ISX-20B spinning reel
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament fishing line
Platypus Pre-Test Monofilament fishing line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader

Mepps Inline Spinners
Boomerang Tool Products