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Browns & Rainbows - Upper Mersey
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
At last, we have fine weather. Clear skies, light winds, and a temperature of 17 degrees, which is the best we've had for quite some time. For a change, I thought I would head off to the upper reaches of the Mersey River and see if there's any trout out and about. It's been quite some time since I've fished this area due to the floods, along with high water levels from consistent rain over the past two months.
When I arrived at Weegena, I couldn't believe the volume of debris that was piled up next to the bridge. All that debris had been removed from the road on the bridge itself, which meant the water level during the flood was above the height of the bridge itself. Looking upstream from the bridge, I could see that the lefthand side of the river had taken the brunt from the flood, more than the righthand side of the river. This was mainly because the right side had very steep/high banks, which protected it more. The river level was not what I would call ‘a good height’ though, because it was still at least 8 to 12 inches above a safe wading height, so care had to be taken due to the fast flow of the river.
After taking a few photos of the flood damage from the bridge, it was 10:40am by the time I took my first cast of the spin session. I couldn't believe my luck when I had an instant hook up and I soon had the first trout of the day in the net. It was a small rainbow trout that had taken the Aglia Fluo Micropigments rainbow inline spinner. This was just the start I was hoping for.
This first stretch of water was one that quite often gives up a couple of fish and today was no different. I went on to catch and release two more rainbows and two browns, from six hook ups. The only disappointment was that they were all small fish, bar one of the brown trout that was a nice medium size, 415g, well-conditioned fish. I also lost what would have been the fish of the day there as well. This was a solid brown trout, that would have easily been around the 550-600g mark, that tossed the lure on its first leap from the river.
From there I fished my way along the lefthand side of the river as it was the shallow and safe side of the river to fish. I only fished around a hundred metres of that side of the river, without a sign of a trout, so I hopped out and headed further upstream to another area that I always like to fish.
With no signs of a trout, I tried several other Mepps spinners, including the March Brown coloured Bug, Aglia Fluo Micropigments Brown and the Stone Fly coloured Bug. Not one of them drew the attention of a trout, which was probably because there were none in the area where I fished. It wasn't until I had reached a wide, deep stretch of water (11:35am) that I picked up a very small brown trout. This fish was taken on the Aglia Fluo Micropigments rainbow spinner, which I had just switched back to.
The wind had also arrived. It was a gusty 15-20kph south easterly, that was blowing straight up the river. This wasn't going to help with the fishing either. When it arrived, I seriously thought about calling it a day, however there were still a couple of nice stretches of river ahead of me, that I really wanted to fish before I called it a day.
I'm glad that I decided to fish on too because I did catch and release another rainbow and a small brown. The rainbow was a nice 320g fish, while the brown was a tiddler. After catching that little brown at 1:05pm, it was time to toss in the towel and make my way back to the car. On the way back to the car I just had to give that first water I fished another go, to see if I could pick up another trout or two.
The decision to fish there was a good one because I was lucky enough to catch and release another small rainbow trout and now my day is done. With five rainbows and three browns caught and released, I was quite happy that I had made the decision to give this area a workout. I'm sure that once the river level drops, the trout fishing will be even better and there may also be some larger fish to be caught.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used Today:
TT Red Belly Spin Rods – RBS701L 7’ 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 4lb
Mepps Inline Spinners:
Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments
Mepps Bug