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Clear Water Trout Fishing
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Finally, the weather has settled down and better still, the river level in the Meander was down to 70cm this morning, so that's where I headed. It wasn't a real early start, but I was in the river by 8:05am, which was pretty good for me lately. As the season goes on, I will be in the water much earlier, seeing as summer has now arrived. The area that I fished today was a mix of medium flowing water, with a couple of small fast water runs. As the season goes on I will also more likely be doing more fast water fishing than the waters that I fished today.
I started the session off using the TT Red Belly 7' ULS 1-3kg rod and Okuma Ceymar HD 1000 spinning reel, spooled with 4lb Platypus Pulse monofilament, ultrathin, strong line. Lure of choice was a Mepps #1 Aglia Fluo Micropigment brown inline spinner. The first water fished was a nice wide-open run that was shallow on my side and deeper on the other side. This is a nice stretch of trout water and one that has given up a few trout each time that I've fished it.
Today it was a little disappointing as I only landed two trout here from six hook ups in this stretch. I caught one trout, then lost five trout, before I changed over to the #1 Mepps March Brown coloured Bug spinner and caught a nice brown on it, not long after the changeover. I also hooked and lost a solid trout on it, in a deep and fast flowing stretch of water.
It wasn't until I came across a narrow, medium-flowing side water at 9:20am, that it all turned around for me. That narrow stretch of side water gave up two lovely browns, with the second one caught in just six inches of water. From there I moved back into the main river, the first cast into a flat water next to the opposite riverbank, resulting in the fish of the day being caught.
No sooner had the March Brown Mepps Bug hit the water and a beautiful, large brown took it. After a good battle with that trout, I finally had it in the net. It was a beautiful female brown trout, but there was a problem. She had taken the lure deep and the hooks had damaged the gills. She was bleeding quite a lot. I checked the inside of her mouth and could see that the damage was severe and if released she would not have survived, so I had no option but to put her down. Having to put that beautiful fish down was a real low for me and it sort of ruined the day, as I always like to release every trout I catch. I did weigh her, and she went 995 grams on the digital scales.
The fishing slowed down for a short time, before I caught and released a tiddler brown trout. A little further up the river I picked up another medium size trout. The sun was well up, and on the water now, which seemed to slow the fishing down for a short time. I continued to hook several trout, all of which I lost, so I went for my third lure change. This time it was the Stone Fly coloured Mepps Bug that went on.
After having a few hits and misses on it, I finally had one stay on and make it into the net. The trout were there in good numbers, and I was having several hits but for some reason they weren't taking the trebles. I noticed they were hitting the lure side on and that's why I was missing them. I decided it was time to give a small, olive-coloured hard body a run, in this wide, medium-flowing stretch of water.
That didn't last all that long either. The trout were coming up behind the lure and following it for a short distance, before moving off not to be seen again. Another lure change was made. This time I went for the small sized #0 (2.5 gram) Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown inline spinner, in the hope the smaller lure may be better suited to the conditions.
There was a gusty wind blowing straight up the river and thankfully it was at my back, so it wasn't a problem. Even better, there was some cloud cover on and off, which helped with the fishing. It wasn't all that long after the change of lure that I was onto a trout. The change of lure had worked, and it continued to do so for the rest of the spin session. I was having plenty of hook ups and landing every second or third trout that took the Aglia brown spinner. I noticed that the water level had risen by a couple of inches, so they must have released some water from the dam, letting a little more water out for irrigation purposes.
That was at 12:20pm and with a dozen trout caught and fourteen others hooked and lost, I thought I may as well call it a day. Besides, my body was starting to feel the effects of fishing the river for over four hours. I knew there were still a few good stretches of fast water around the bend in the river, that were worthy of flicking a lure into and I couldn't call it a day until I tried them. It was the right decision, and I went on to catch and release three more trout from six hook ups. I stopped fishing when the fifteenth trout was landed. All I had ahead of me now was a forty-minute walk back to the car and by the time I reached it I was totally done and dusted.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used:
TT Red Belly Spin Rods – RBS702L 7’ 1-3kg
Ceymar HD Spin Reels – CHD-1000HA
Platypus Pulse Mono – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 4lb
Mepps Inline Spinners -
Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments Inline Spinner
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner