Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » 5AM on the River 7-12-2018
5AM on the River 7-12-2018
Well for the first time this season I was in the Meander River by 5:00am in the morning on what was a beautiful cool morning, with plenty of water flowing down the river. The day was supposed to reach 27 degrees and that was the reason for the early start. I was hoping the trout fishing would be better early morning than it had been on the later starts that I have had on this river. I do prefer the early morning starts on the rivers as it is the best time to be on the water and the trout fishing is usually at its best then, especially in the summer months. This river hasn't fished all that well this season and this is another reason why I wanted to have the early start on it. There was only one thing that I wasn't happy with and that was the water level. The river was running at 70cm, which is a little on the high side where I'm fishing.
I started the day using the same spinner as I have been doing now on several trips, the Aglia Furia. The very first cast to the opposite river bank resulted in a solid hit and miss. Two casts later, with a cast up and across the fast flowing water, I had another hit and miss, before I eventually hooked and lost a small trout. So the fish were here, it's just a matter of getting one to stay hooked.
I moved into another wide medium flowing stretch of river that was well above the knees and it was quite tough working my way upstream against the flow. On this stretch of river I had two more hook ups, but unfortunately like before I lost both fish. With two more stretches of water to fish, before I was getting out and moving to another area further up the river, I was hoping to catch a couple of trout. I was using the cast and drift method for most of the morning and it was getting the results... but I just couldn't get a fish to stay on. Finally, those two stretches of river gave up three browns, all of which stayed on. Only one of them was a medium size brown, weighing 320g, while the other two were small browns of around 180g.
I headed off to the next area of river, which was around 1.5km further upstream and it was much easier wading here because it was a lot wider and shallower stretch of river than where I had just fished. Most of the water depth here was knee deep, making it easier to wade and less tiring on the body. There were hundreds of caddis moths along both sides of the river and every so often a trout would leap from the river trying to catch one.
The fishing was fairly slow here too, with just the three trout caught and released from the only four hook ups I had over some 700 metres of river. I had a few follows and that's as far as it went here. It was another disappointing session on the Meander River again, with just the six trout caught and released.
On the way home I checked out the small creek that I often have a fish in and found it had a reasonable flow from recent rains in the highlands. I had a few flicks in it with the Furia and had a couple of follows but no takers, so I then tried a Mepps #1 gold Black Fury spinner and caught two trout in two casts, with the best one going 510g.
A little further up a large brown came hard and fast at the lure, before it took it on the second grab. I thought it was well hooked, as I put pressure on the line to set the hooks it leaped from the river and I more or less pulled the lure from its mouth. That trout would have been in the 1.5kg to 2kg range and would have been my best for the season... had I managed to catch it. But it wasn't to be and I'll just have to wait a little longer, won't I.
Cheers
Adrian (meppstas) Webb