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A New Trout Stalker?
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
With Christmas now out of the way and seeing as the Meander River was running at a nice safe wading height, I thought that today was a good one to take young Roland for a spin session. Roland is a nice young lad, who really loves his trout fishing, and I'm only too happy to take him to a river that normally fishes well. Plus, it's one he rarely gets the chance to fish. I was also hoping to pass on some of my knowledge of how to fish a large river and the areas to look for that will be holding trout. Yes, Roland has fished the Mersey and small rivers many times over, but like I say, no two rivers are the same and they never fish the same either, so I hoped that Roland would learn something from today's spin session.
It was an early start. We arrived at the river around 6:45am and during the twenty-minute walk to our entry point, we came across a campsite that had five vehicles parked in it. Seeing so many vehicles there and not knowing how long they've been there for, meant that we could be in for a tough spin session in the stretch of river that we were about to fish.
Roland caught his first trout at 8:00am and it was a nice medium-sized, well-conditioned trout too. After hooking and losing a couple of small trout I didn't catch my first trout until 8:35am, and that fish was around the same size as Roland's trout. The fishing didn't improve all that much either. It was a tough time, with just five medium-size trout caught between the two of us over two and a half hours there.
The two I caught were taken on a #1 Mepps March Brown coloured Bug spinner. Two of the three that Roland caught were on a March Brown Bug, while the other was on a ZMan 3.5'' Trick SwimZ soft plastic in Bad Shad colour (3342). I felt that this long stretch of river had taken a hammering from other trout fishers over the past few days, so I suggested to Roland that we head back to the car and try another stretch of river that I knew would not have been fished as much as this popular stretch of water.
So, we headed back to the car and off to the next stretch of river, that was a few kilometres away. Once there I could see that there weren't all that many tyre tracks on the dirt surface, which meant that this area hadn't been heavily fished. This stretch of river was also well shaded along the righthand side, which was good as that was also the deeper side. If there were trout here, that's where they would be found.
It was 10:30am by the time we started to fish our way upstream. I was using the #1 Mepps Stone Fly coloured Bug spinner, while Roland went for the #1 gold Mepps Black Fury spinner, which I said to him may be too bright for the conditions that we were fishing in. I told him that trout's eyes are very light sensitive and the gold would reflect a lot of light from the spinner blade, which will not likely attract a trout in this clear water.
He decided to stick with it and give it a go anyway. I had a couple of medium size trout follow the Stone Fly Bug early into the session, before a solid trout came off the opposite, shaded side, of the river and smashed the spinner. This was a ripper of a fish and the best of the day so far. While I was battling with this solid trout a larger trout was staying by its side. Young Roland couldn't believe what he was seeing. Once I had the trout under control and closer to where I was standing in the river, the other large trout darted off and I got Roland to slip the net under my fish. It was certainly a nice fish too; solid, well-conditioned and beautifully coloured. After taking a couple of photos and then weighing it while it was in the net, it came in at 815 grams.
From then on, the fishing was reasonably quiet. The trout were there but they just weren't turned on, which was probably due to the gusty south easterly breeze that had arrived. I had changed over to the ever-reliable March Brown coloured Bug spinner and went on to catch another medium size trout. We both continued to fish our way upstream, having the odd hit and miss from a few trout.
It wasn't until we had reached the top end of the fast to medium flowing water that Roland caught his fourth trout of the day, another nice medium size brown trout. It was 11:45am when Roland caught that trout, and my body was starting to get sore. I said to Roland that we'd fish for a few more minutes and then call it a day, which he was quite happy to do.
We both moved into a wide, slow-flowing, waist-deep stretch of water, that had quite a lot of small to medium size trout in it, most of which would only follow the spinners at that stage. Roland finally had one take his lure. I was about to say to Roland it's time to turn around and head back downstream, back to the car, when I took one more cast straight upstream and parallel to the heavily wooded riverbank.
I had no sooner turned the reel handle when the March Brown Bug spinner was taken by a solid fish. I couldn't see the fish, due to the glare on the water surface, but I knew it was a large brown by the way it peeled line from the little Okuma ITX-1000 spinning reel. After playing it out with this solid fish, I finally had it close enough to ease it into the net. It was a beauty too. A bigger fish than the one that I caught early on, this fish weighed in at 900 grams and was the fish of the day.
Once released, our day was done, and we made our way back to the car. It wasn't one of my better days in the Meander, but it was one of the most enjoyable having young Roland along with me, and I hope he learnt a lot on the day as well. Before the trout season is over, I'm sure we'll have a few more trips together in a river too. Who knows, Roland could well be the next trout stalker...
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used During My Trout Season
TT Red Belly Spin Rods - RBS702L 7’ 1-3kg 2pce
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods – 6’6” 1-3kg 2pce
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels – ITX-1000
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reels - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar HD Spin Reels – CHD-1000HA
Platypus Pulse Premium Mono
Platypus Super 100 Mono
Platypus Pre-Test Mono
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners