Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Chasing Meander River Trout

Chasing Meander River Trout

By Adrian (meppstas) Webb

Today I headed off for a spin session in the Meander River. It was an early start, in what was a pretty cool morning to start the day. I left home at 6:20 am and by the time I drove to Meander, got the wading gear on, and took a long walk to my entry point, it was 7:45 am by the time I had my first cast with the Mepps #1 Bug March Brown coloured inline spinner. The river itself was running at 68 cm, which was a good wading height, the sky was clear and there wasn't a breath of wind. It was a great time to be in the river chasing wild brown trout that's for sure.

The spin session didn't start off as well as I had expected, due to overusing the line while spin fishing the inline spinners without the anti-kink set up, over the past four or five spin sessions. By not using the anti-kink set up for a long period of time, it slowly created line twists and the first couple of casts and retrieves was enough to have the fine line turn itself inside out and turn into a twisted mess. Thankfully, it's quite easy to fix. It's just a matter of peeling off a few metres of line and then adding the anti-kink set up to it. The problem was solved in a few minutes.

The spin session was pretty slow to start with as there wasn't a sign of a trout to be hard while spin fishing the first two wide and slow flowing stretches of water. I even tried a couple small hard body lures in a deeper run and had a nice trout follow the lure for a short distance, before it lost interest and moved off. I decided I would bypass all the slow, wide flowing waters and just concentrate on casting and drifting the March Brown Bug in them. I felt it was my best chance of getting onto a few trout.

It wasn't until I fished a small and narrow fast water that I hooked and landed the first trout of the spin session. Nothing big, just a nice medium size, well-conditioned brown trout. After one hour in the river, I finally had my first trout in the net, thanks to the Mepps March Brown coloured Bug spinner. The decision to fish the fast waters was a good one because I had only moved a few metres upstream when I hooked and landed my second trout, while casting and drifting the lure in another fast water run. This was more to my liking, with two trout caught and released in just under ten minutes. With several fast waters ahead of me, I felt I would get a few more before I called it a day.

The following couple of medium flowing runs did have trout in them, but they were skittish. The slightest noise of the spinners hitting the water was enough to see them dart off. The sun was now on the water, which wasn't helping either. It wasn't until I moved into a narrow stretch of fast water, that was well shaded from the thick foliage along both sides of it, that I felt I'd have a chance of catching a trout.

The right-hand side of that fast water was the deepest side of the narrow run and that's the area I flicked the March Brown Bug into. Being narrow I couldn't drift the spinner with the flow. I did what I normally do when retrieving the spinner directly downstream, I retrieve the spinner a fraction faster than the flow of the river, which keeps the spinner blade rotating.

On the second cast and retrieve it was fish on, as a nice well-conditioned, medium size trout had taken the Bug spinner. After a brief tussle I had it in close enough to slip the net under it and trout number three was landed. That was the only trout that I caught in that short and narrow stretch of fast water. From there I bypassed a long and wide, slow to medium stretch of river, so that I could concentrate on fishing a few more fast water runs.

Instead of getting out of the river, to bypass the long and wide knee deep stretches of river, I just continued to tough it out as I slowly made my way upstream to the next fast water run. Doing that was a big mistake as the rocky river bottom started to aggravate my lower back and right hip, so that by the time I reached the fast water I was feeling pretty sore. Even more disappointing was hooking and losing a trout in the first few metres of the fast water. Thankfully it was only a few minutes after that loss that I hooked and landed a nice medium size brown trout.

From there I slowly made my way upstream again, doing it the hard way to reach the next fast water. Thankfully, like before, it was worth it. While continuing to use the cast and drift method with the March Brown Bug, I caught and released two more medium size trout in quick time. The next fast water run was a couple of hundred metres ahead of me, so I decided I would hop out of the river, bypass the slow flowing water, and hop back in when I reached the next fast water run.

On the walk along the high riverbank, I could see that the whole river was now in full sun, so seeing as it was 10:25 am I made the decision to head back to the car and drive to another stretch of river several kilometres downstream. I knew that the area I headed to would have a certain amount of shade along the righthand side of it, which was the main reason to head there. It wasn't all that long (11:00 am) before I was back in the river, casting the March Brown Bug around in the crystal-clear water.

There was a reasonable amount of shade along the right-hand side of the river, which was good because it was the deep side of the river as well. I was only in the river for seven minutes before I hooked a small/medium size brown trout, in a very fast flowing stretch of water. Trout number seven was landed. After having a couple of hits and misses, I then hooked and landed my eighth trout of the spin session. With two trout caught and released in ten minutes, I was already thinking about a double figure day on the trout.

Well, it didn't go that way at all. A little further up the river I hooked and landed (11:40 am) a very nice solid brown. This was also the best trout of the day, weighing 375 grams. I know it's not big, but it was in top condition and a solid fish at that. After its release, and a little further up the river, I hooked another solid trout. This was my double figure (10) fish too. There was only one problem. No sooner had that come to mind and the trout leaped from the river and spat the spinner. So, my double figure day went straight out the door.

Once that trout was lost it all went downhill. I was really feeling sore in the body now and was seriously thinking about calling it a day. As we anglers do, I carried on fishing for another forty-five minutes, without seeing a trout. In the end I was just too tired to continue fishing anymore, totally done, and dusted. I had two choices of making my way back to the car from where I was. The first was to make my way back through the dairy cow paddocks that were all lumpy from the cattle's hooves, which is hard on the body. The second choice was to make my way up a very steep hill to a nice even and flat dirt road and walk back to the car. I chose the latter and I was only three quarters of the way up the steep hill when I just had to sit on a fallen tree and have a breather. I was really sucking in the air that's for sure.

After a few minutes I settled down, made it to the road and headed to the car, which I reached at 12:45 pm. Once back at the car I looked back on how the spin session went and was a little disappointed with the result, with just the nine trout being caught. I really felt it would have been a better day than what it turned out to be. Then again, nine trout is still a good number isn't it, and it could have been much worse I suppose. Like I say regularly, that's trout fishing.

Adrian (meppstas)

Equipment Used Today:

TT Red Belly Spin Rods - RBS702L 7’0”, 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono Premium Monofilament Fishing Line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners -
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner