Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Back in the Tannin
Back in the Tannin
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Seeing as we had around 26mm of rain overnight, a trip to the small tannin stream was well overdue. It was 3:30pm by the time I hit the water, with a 25kph south easterly wind howling through the area. The stream had a nice flow to it and I thought it was flowing at a good height. That was until I fished my way further upstream and I found it to be lower than I thought it was.
I had started the spin session off using a #00 Mepps Stone Fly coloured Bug spinner and hooked and lost a trout ten minutes into the session. This was then followed by a couple of soft hit and misses further upstream. The water was dark tannin colour in the knee deep runs and a much lighter colour in the shallow runs.
I replaced the Stone Fly with a White Miller Bug spinner to see if that may turn them on. It didn't and all I managed was a couple of hit and misses on it. The trout that had a go at the White Miller did hit it hard and fast side on, before darting off.
It was time (4:00pm) to change lures again and it was on with the ever-reliable little beat up Gold #00 Mepps Aglia. This was my choice, as if this little lure didn't catch a trout then nothing would. It only took fifteen minutes to catch the first trout on it, after a small brown took the little gold spinner in a shallow run of fast water.
After the release of that little brown I pondered whether I should have started the spin session off with that lure. A little further upstream I hooked and lost a very small brown and one that I was happy to lose because it would have surpassed my smallest trout that I caught back on September 13.
I came to a narrow, shallow fast water run and thought I would give a brand new #00 Gold Mepps Black Fury a bit of a go. The Black Fury lure is the first Mepps lure that I started trout fishing with 55 years ago and it's still one of the great lures used around the world today. The first cast into that shallow run resulted in an instant hook up from a small brown, which I lost as quickly as it took the spinner. I was going to continue using it, however I decided to go back to the old Aglia, mainly because of the duller used spinner blade on it.
The next water that I moved into was a long medium flowing stretch. The first cast and retrieve nothing happened, while the second cast was a little more to the right and closer to the overhanging foliage. Halfway through the retrieve a bow wave appeared behind the spinner and a light twitch of the rod was all that it took to get the trout to take the spinner.
It had taken fifty minutes to catch the second trout and a nice fish it was too. Not a large one, just a nice 335 gram well-conditioned wild trout. Just ahead of me I spotted a water fowl in the stream. This is not what I wanted to see at all. Then to make matters worse it took off upstream, before darting up the river bank. Any trout that may have been in the middle section of this stream would now have gone. It wasn't until I reached the top end of it and flicked the lure into a small flat water that it was trout on again. Another well-conditioned fish, around the same size as the last one.
I then came to the more difficult stretches to get to on this little stream. Stretches of water that are full of log jams. These log jams range from reasonably easy to very hard to climb over and one must take care in doing so. A lot of the timber in them is rotten and can easily break when full body weight is on them, while others will just give way under you.
There's no way around them either, due to the high banks and blackberry bushes that line both sides of the stream. At 74 years (closer to 75) of age, they're not getting any easier to get over. Getting over these log jams is well worth the effort as there's some nice trout waters on the other side of them that holds some solid fish.
As I made my way over each one I did pick up some nice browns as well as a few smaller fish. I was also entertained by a young platypus that was feeding near a log in the middle of the stream. Seeing platypus in these streams is always a pleasure, and not only that it's also a sign that it's healthy water too.
From here on I went on, catching and releasing six trout, which was good. I did want to continue fishing, however it was 6:25pm and I told my wife that I would be home by six o'clock and I knew that she would be getting worried, especially seeing as I always fish alone. The spin session turned out to be a good one, with a total of nine trout caught and released from thirteen hook ups and eighteen hits. There was still some nice trout water ahead of me to be fished as well, however that will have to wait for another day.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg Trout Rod
Okuma Inspira Spin Reel - ISX-20B
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament Line
Platypus Pretest Monofilament Line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Boomerang Tool Products