Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Doing the Hard Yards on Trout
Doing the Hard Yards on Trout
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
It was nice to hear that we were going to have fine weather today, with light winds and a maximum temperature of eighteen degrees, just the perfect weather to be in a river chasing trout. The option of where to fish was very easy, as the Mersey River was the only place to head to because the river level was at the safest wading height. The Meander and Leven Rivers were both running on the high side, compared to the Mersey River where I planned to head to.
The idea was to fish a nice open straight stretch of river, that was only a ten-minute walk from where I parked the car. That was until I remembered that I told a friend a few days ago that he should fish there because it was the safest area to fish at the time. That's when I decided to do the long walk to the lower runs of the river. This walk to the river was further than the last long walk that I took here, back on the August 25. The walk was much longer than the last walk that I did too and this time it took me fifty-five minutes before I reached the river and made the first cast with a Mepps #1 Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown inline spinner.
The river itself was flowing a little higher than the last trip, so care had to be taken in the first stretch of river, that I could only fish from a slippery riverbank. There I had a small trout follow the lure for a short distance, before it moved off. As soon as I saw that the trout was only interested in following the lure, I replaced the brown spinner with a Mepps #1 Aglia Fluo Micropigments rainbow spinner. This is one that's worked in this river before.
I didn't bother using the rainbow spinner in the same area where the small brown was, instead I moved a little further upstream to where the flow was faster and had a nice long, wide flat water along the opposite riverbank. The stretch of water that I was about to fish was close to fifty metres long and the flat water ran the full length of it. The flat water was three metres wide, so I was pretty confident that I would pick up a couple of trout fishing it. Even better was the fact that this stretch of water was perfect for casting and drifting the Aglia rainbow spinner. The flow was strong from my side of the river, then eased off where it met flat water, some five metres away from my side of the river.
It only took a few casts and drifts into the flat water before I had the first trout take the spinner. Nothing big, just a small/medium size brown. Once hooked, it headed straight into the fast-flowing water and played hard to get. It didn't take all that long before it tired and I eased it into the net. That short fifty-metre stretch of river gave up two more trout from three hook ups, using the cast and drift method with the #1 Aglia rainbow inline spinner. Two browns were landed, the other trout was a rainbow that tossed the spinner after making several leaps from the river.
From there I had to do a little bush bashing to reach the next stretch of river and it also had a couple of nice small to medium size flat waters on the opposite side of the river. After having a couple of soft hits and misses from trout, I finally had one that took the spinner, and it was the best fish caught so far. This was a nice well-conditioned, medium size brown trout, that weighed 455 grams. It, like all the fish I catch, was released back into the river no worse for wear.
That was the last of the decent water to fish here. The following one hundred metres of river was narrow and very fast flowing, too fast to be holding any trout at all. Bypassing this long stretch of fast water isn't easy at all and it meant that I had a pretty tough road ahead of me. To get out of this area required a large amount of bush bashing, before I reached the open land and river. This is where knowing the area pays off. If I didn't know the area as well as I did, I could continue to go around in circles quite easily. With the bush being at least three metres and higher, there's no visibility at all, so knowing the area like I do, allowed me to make my way out to the wide-open spaces. I can tell you now, it wasn't easy. The bush was thick, prickly and there were plenty of fallen trees to cope with. It took me twenty minutes before I reached the open plains, and I was totally stuffed too.
Once out I made my way back to the river, entering the same long stretch of water that I fished on a previous trip. It was a real waste of time too. The only trout that I saw was a small one, that was chasing a few small insects that were hovering in the shallow water near the riverbank. It was 12:05pm and with no signs of a trout since I had caught the fourth one, I decided it was time to call it a day and make my way back to the car. That was at least a kilometre or more away.
The walk back to the car was also next to the river and it wasn't until I was a few hundred metres from the car that I thought I would hop back in the river. I would fish one more stretch of water, in the hope that I may just catch a couple more trout. That would make the trip more worthwhile than it had been so far. With just four trout being caught and released for the distance, effort and time put in, it wasn't what I would call a rewarding day in the river. I wanted more.
Well, the stretch of water I fished wasn't all that good either. After thirty minutes, with just one medium-size trout being hooked and lost, it was time to toss in the towel and head back to the car. Just as I made my way out of the river, I flicked the spinner into a small flat water and couldn't believe my luck when the spinner was snapped up by a small brown that just happened to be in that little flat water. That was the end, my day was certainly done and dusted. After three and a half hours I was totally worn out and the steep walk up the hill to the car finished me off good and proper.
One good thing that did come out of the trip was catching four trout in an area that I hadn't fished since the 2016 record floods, that totally ruined this area. Even though the trout are not back in the area in big numbers, it was good to at least catch a few trout there today. In the five trips that I have had to this area so far this season, due to other rivers being too high for safe wading, I have caught and released nineteen trout all up, which I'm happy with. I'm sure as the season goes on, the water temps rise and river levels drop, this area will certainly be worth another visit or two. I was also very impressed with the new TT Red Belly 7' ultra-fast lightweight spin rod, which was well suited to my style of river fishing and coupled up with the Okuma IXT-1000 spinning reel made for a great trout fishing setup.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used This Trip
TT Red Belly Spin Rod - RBS701L 7' 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono - 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Leader - 4lb
Mepps Inline Spinners
Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments Inline Spinners
Adrian (meppstas)