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Aglia Mouche Noire and Trout 200
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
I was in two minds whether to go fishing this morning because I was still recovering from a long, eight-hour spin session one day ago. In the end, I thought why not go because I only require five more trout to reach my two hundredth for this season. With the weather being fine, I headed off to the Dasher River. It was 8:45am by the time I hopped in the river and even then, there was a light easterly breeze blowing straight up the river.
The river itself wasn't running all that high today, it had dropped to a nice wading height and was also a light tea colour, just right for chasing trout. I started the session using a Mepps #00 White Miller Bug inline spinner for the first five minutes, without a sign of a trout, so I changed over to a #0 Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown spinner and it didn't take all that long before a small brown fell to it.
The next cast was straight back into the same stretch of water and that's when I picked up the second trout of the morning, another small aggressive brown was landed. After its release the fishing slowed down with hardly any trout to be seen, so another lure change was made. This time I went for the #0 Mepps March Brown coloured Bug to see how it would go in the river, mainly because it's been doing well on the trout in other rivers lately. It only took a few minutes, while fishing a deeper stretch of water, and a nice small/medium size trout took it. Even though the trout are rarely large in this beautiful little river, they're still fun to catch, fight hard and it's close to home, which is even better.
The stretch of river I was fishing today is very open on both sides of the river, so there's not a lot of foliage on it, creating a lack of shaded areas when fishing in full sun, like I was in today. The more the sun gets overhead, the tougher the trout fishing becomes, even more so in this shallow and light tannin coloured water.
The next run of water I was about to move into was a narrow and shallow run, so I went for another change of lure. This time it was a #00 copper Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire spinner that went on the small snap swivel. This water did have a bit of shade on it, which was good, and it gave up a small brown trout as well, which was even better. That little trout was the smallest of the four caught so far.
I moved a few metres forward in this narrow run and lobbed the little spinner at the top end of it. No sooner had I started to retrieve it and another brown took a liking to it. This trout was a bigger fish, just on legal size (22cm), and it did play hard to get for a short time before I slipped the net under it. It was just legal size and in good condition. This trout was the one I wanted most of all today. This was the 200th trout of the season for me, something I wanted to achieve before the new year.
A little further up this small stream there was a wide and deep stretch of water. This was one that was too deep for me to get through and one that has given up a solid trout or two, many times when I've fished it. Another lure change was made. I went back to the heavier #1 March Brown coloured Mepps Bug spinner, which worked a treat.
I took several long casts and retrieves, into the top end of this deep water, before a nice plump brown decided it was good enough to take it. That fish fought hard and stayed deep, before it broke the surface, and I slipped the net under it. Six trout caught and released in the first hour wasn't all that bad, in fact, it was much better than I had expected given the sunny conditions and shallow light tannin-coloured waters.
From here I had to get out and bypass that deep stretch of water, re-entering the river some thirty metres upstream. It was here that I caught the seventh trout of the spin session. This was another small brown and one that was the most beautifully coloured trout of the morning.
From here on the fishing was really tough. I kept chopping and changing lures but couldn’t hook a trout. With the sun being higher overhead, I knew I was wasting my time by staying in the river. It was time to either head to another area, that I knew was well shaded, or call it a day. I did the latter and called it a day. I had done what I set out to do and that was catch my 200th trout, it was time to head for home and put the feet up.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods – ULS 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels – ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono Monofilament Fishing Line
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament Fishing Lines
Platypus Pre-Test Monofilament Fishing Line
Mepps Inline Spinners -
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner
Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire Inline Spinner
Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments Inline Spinner