Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » A Dasher Small Browns - 10-11-2018
A Dasher Small Browns - 10-11-2018
Even though it was very windy conditions I still headed off for a spin session in another kilometre stretch of the Dasher River this afternoon on private property. The water level was low and a light tannin colour, so I started off with a gold Mepps Aglia to see how that would go for starters. I knew the fishing would be tougher today due to the stream being more open to the elements, with very little foliage along both sides of it for the first 800 metres.
It took just two casts into a small flat water, under a cattle bridge and I had my first little brown of the session take the lure. I wasn't expecting the trout to be all that large again today either, given that I was fishing a little shallow stream. As I worked my way upstream the 30kph wind wasn't making it easy to cast the little 1.5g spinner into it. It took another fifteen minutes before I picked up another little battler and that one was followed by another one ten minutes on.
I had a couple of trout follow the spinner but they wouldn't take it, so I changed to a Mepps Bug spinner in Stone Fly colour to see if the darker colour would suck a few in. The very first cast and retrieve saw a small brown snap it up in no time at all. Not long after that I had another take the Stone Fly lure and then another trout again five minutes later.
I moved into wide, shallow, open stretch of water that had the shade from a large blackwood tree across a small section of it. That shaded area was a good spot for a trout to be holding and so I flicked the Bug spinner just past the shadowed area and retrieved the lure back through it. The spinner was only halfway through it when it was taken by a decent size trout that turned out to be the best of the day. It made two solids runs before it leaped from the river and tossed the spinner with its first head shake. Finally I had a decent trout take a spinner only to lose it.
I changed to a gold Black Fury to give that a run on the trout. It did pick up one small brown, after having several follows. I felt the gold blade was a little too bright to use in the open water now that it was in full sun and so I had another change, moving to a plain copper Aglia in the hope that it would catch more than the other spinners had done so far.
It had the desired result and I then picked up three trout from five hook ups in pretty quick time. It was working a treat on the trout. The fishing went quiet for just over fifty metres, mainly due to the water being too shallow. Next I approached a long stretch of water that had a mix of slow flowing and small fast water runs. Not only that it was covered in shade and had plenty of foliage along one side of it. Here I caught and released a nice little fat brown, putting me on nine for the session which wasn't too bad given that the conditions weren't ideal today.
I wanted to reach double figures before I was calling it a day and seeing as there was some nice shaded water ahead I went for it. It wasn't all that flash to start with as I lost three trout in a row, before I had number ten in hand. I had reached double figures, which was what I wanted, but now with more good looking trout water still ahead of me I decided I would fish on a little bit longer.
This was a good move too because I caught and released another six trout from eight hook ups before I called it a day. With another sixteen trout caught today it took my last three spin sessions tally to 49 trout, making for a big improvement on my seasons total. Those three good sessions jumped my season tally from a poor 84 trout in 19 trips to a new tally of 133 in 22 trips... I'm now a much happier trout fisho at the moment...
Cheers,
Adrian (meppstas) Webb