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Back on the Leven River Trout
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Seeing as I had to head to my Angling Club meeting at Ulverstone tonight, I thought I would head to the Leven River for the first time this trout season to see if I could catch a trout or two. I checked the river level, before making the decision to do so, and found that it was running at safe height, which was good to see. The Leven River itself used to be one of my favourite rivers to fish many years ago, however, after the 2016 record floods that we had, it went downhill, and the trout were few and far between. I didn't even bother to fish the river last season due to reports from others of how poorly it had fished. It's also a forty-minute drive from home, which is a long drive just to catch nothing or maybe one or two small trout.
It was a mid-afternoon spin session today, and 3:20 pm when I entered the river in what was reasonably warm conditions, with full sun on the light tannin coloured water. As I made my way along the riverbank, I spotted hundreds of small caterpillars (some call them soldier worms) on the fine sandy flats next to the river. It's the first time in twenty years or that I've seen this on a river. They used to say that when it happens it means we are in for a long dry summer, so I hope they're wrong.
I started the spin session off using a Mepps #1 March Brown coloured Bug spinner, mainly because it's worked well on the trout in both the Mersey and Meander Rivers so far throughout the trout season. The first stretch of river that I fished was a mix of medium and fast waters, with not a sign of a trout. This was pretty disappointing as it certainly looked good enough to be holding trout. It just goes to show that you can't judge a book by its cover. The next stretch of water that I moved into was a wide, deep run of slow flowing water. This water did have trout in it. How did I know? Because I could see them surface feeding in several areas on the river.
After making a dozen or more casts and retrieves, with only the odd trout following the lure for a short distance, I decided to try a small hard body lure to see if that may entice a trout. The lure that I used was a suspending type and one that was a little heavier than what I would normally use, due to this stretch of water being deeper than the Meander and Mersey Rivers that I normally fish.
It only took a few minutes and I hooked and lost a medium size brown trout on the hard body lure. Then, a few casts after that it was fish on when I hooked and landed a nice solid rainbow trout. It put up a good fight as it made several runs and leaps from the river, before I had it in close enough to slip the net under it. I have caught rainbow trout here before however they are very few and far between in the lower reaches of the Leven River. They're normally caught fifteen kilometres or more upstream in the Loongana area, which is classed as rainbow trout waters.
After the release of that rainbow, I had several other hits and misses from rainbow trout that were in the area. I just could not seem to get a hook up at all. It was time to bypass this long, wide, deep stretch of river and concentrate on fishing the shallow, fast waters ahead of me, which were more to my liking. It was here that I used the March Brown coloured Mepps Bug again, to see if that would get the ball rolling for me. It took a while and eventually a small brown took a liking to it and was hooked and landed.
After that the trout didn't want a bar of it. They came up behind the lure, took one look at it and then darted off. It was time to make another change. I gave a #0 copper Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire a short workout, without a sign of a trout, which was followed up with the use of a #0 gold Aglia Mouche Noire, with the same result... not a sign of a trout.
Not only that, the wind had also rocked up and was blowing hard, straight down the river, which was really starting to tick me off. I was seriously thinking about calling it a day and heading back to the car. When I checked the time though, I still had a little under two hours left before the Angling Club meeting started, so I continued fishing.
I went for another change of lure and as a last resort I went for the Mepps copper #0 Black Fury inline spinner. This is another of the great trout catching lures that have served me well over so many years. No sooner had I put it on and started to fish the fast water runs and the trout that were there took a liking to it. The wind eased off as well. While I mainly concentrated on the fast waters, that gave up quite a few trout, the shallow waters close to the riverbanks also gave up the odd trout.
The copper Mepps Black Fury had certainly turned things around for me and before I knew it, I had caught and released ten trout from fifteen hook ups! The trout themselves weren't large fish, with most of them being small/medium size fish, with the best one weighing in at 410 grams. The trout were certainly aggressive now... but I had run out of time to continue fishing. It was nearly six o'clock and from where I was, I had a twenty-minute walk back to the car, plus a twenty-minute drive to Ulverstone to where the meeting was.
I had no choice but to call it a day and make my way back to the car, making it back to Ulverstone with seven minutes to spare. The trip to the Leven River was well worth it today, with one rainbow trout and nine brown trout being caught and released. This was a good result in the end, after such a poor start. I will return to the Leven River again before the trout season closes. For the next trip I'll wait for a dull and overcast day though, as I feel that will be best suited for the trout fishing. A day with a light breeze, preferably a South Westerly, would also be ideal.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used:
TT Red Belly Spin Rods – RBS702L, 7’, 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels – ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono Fishing Line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire Inline Spinner
Mepps Black Fury Inline Spinner
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner