Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » A Flying Start 19-11-2018
A Flying Start 19-11-2018
Another overcast and windless morning saw me in the Meander River by 7:20am, where I started casting the Mepps Aglia Furia up and across the river. Using the cast and drift method, it was on the second cast that I had a follow from a medium size brown. Even though it didn't take the spinner, it was a good sign seeing a trout so early into the spin session.
The river height was running at 62cm, which was fine for where I was fishing at this stage, though I would have preferred it to have been five to ten centimetres lower. I was ten minutes into the spin session when I had my first hook up, it was only a small brown but it was a start. I soon had it in hand, unhooked and released back into the river.
Another cast up and across the river and I had my second trout on. Like the previous one it was just a small 280g fish. Two trout in two minutes, it was a great start to the morning fishing. Then, just before 8:00am, I had another brown take the Furia and this was a better fish than the other two. Three trout already caught and released in such a short time, in a river that hasn't been fishing all that well.
These trout were all taken in medium flowing water too, which surprised me as I thought the fast water would have been the go today. With just thirty metres of river left to fish, before I was hopping out and heading to another area, I picked up my fourth trout at 8:10 am. With four trout already on the scorecard it was one of my best starts in the Meander River since last season.
It was back to the car and off to another stretch of river, one that's always been my favourite on this river until this season because it hasn't performed at all. I worked my way upstream, casting the Furia to within a few inches of the river bank and then slowly retrieving it, while letting it drift with the flow. I didn't have a single follow.
I kept this up for over three hundred metres of river, without a sign of a trout. Even with the caddis moths hovering above the water, while others touched the surface, there was not a sign of a fish. It was time to get out and head to another spot further upstream... another area that hasn't been all too flash so far this season. But... where do you go when your favourite river is not fishing all that good, you just have to keep trying and hope it will soon turn around for the better.
After a long walk through a hardwood plantation and then across several paddocks, I was finally back in the river. With hardly any breeze in the area there were hundreds of caddis moths on both sides of the river... and not a sign of a trout on the rise. It was going to be another tough couple of hours fishing here too.
I was staying with the Aglia Furia because if there were any trout here I'm sure to get a follow from one while using that lure. It wasn't until I had fished around fifty metres of river that I did a right handed backhand cast, around a fallen tree and lobbed the spinner within four inches of the river bank. No sooner had I started retrieving the lure when a good size brown moved out of the shadows and didn't hesitate to take the Furia. It was a beautiful solid fish that fought like hell for a several minutes before I had it in close enough to slip the net under it. That fish went 460g, a couple of photos and it was returned to the river.
That was the last fish seen for well over the next three hundred metres of river, until I picked up my sixth trout of the morning, which was taken in a fast water run. I drew the fish out of a flat water, close to the opposite river bank. It followed the spinner that I drifted with the flow. That trout sat right up behind the lure until it had reached the middle of the river and that's when I gave the rod a light twitch, making the spinner blade flutter and that's when the trout took it.
It was a lovely fish, although not as big as the previous brown, this one went 370 grams. That fish was caught at 10:45am and I then fished another two hundred metre stretch of medium to fast flowing water without a single follow. That's when I called it a day.
With only two more trout caught and released after such a great start to the day, it wasn't the ending I wanted at all. It was another disappointing four hours spent in the Meander River today... a ninety kilometre round trip for just six trout isn't good enough in my book. I'll still come back here again, when that will be who knows. Then knowing me and how much I love fishing this river, it won't be all that far off.
Cheers,
Adrian (meppstas) Webb