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Double Digits on the Mepps Aglia
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
With the Tasmanian trout season closed, Adrian shares a flashback article to an earlier season adventure in the river that clocks up double digits on the Mepps inline spinner.
Beautiful mild conditions saw me heading off for another spin session in a small stream today. This trip was one to a stretch of water that I haven't fished since the last trout season, so with the mild conditions I felt it was time to give it a go. That last trip to this stretch of water only gave up two small browns, so today I was hoping for a big improvement with the fishing. I had a twenty-minute walk to where I started the spin session and found the water was still running at a nice wading height. The water temperature was sitting on six degrees, a rise of three degrees, which was good. Three degrees doesn't sound a lot, but it is when chasing trout.
I went with a Mepps #0 Aglia Fluo Micropigments rainbow inline spinner for starters, because it was the lure that's been doing well in the cold tannin waters. If this didn't fire the trout up today, then I would make a change. There wasn't a sign of a trout in the first small run of water, it was the second and much larger run that gave up two small browns in two casts. Both trout were taken with casts to the top end of the pool, with both trout taking the Aglia Fluo in quick time. It was just the start every trout angler likes to have. It doesn't get any better than that and I just hoped that it would continue as the session went on.
The following run was a little shorter and deeper than the previous water fished, and here I had two hits and misses from a small brown. A little further upstream I fished a wide, shallow stretch of water, that I thought had a nice trout holding zone on the deeper left-hand side. It didn't give up anything. It took just thirty minutes before I picked up my third little brown and on the next cast, I had another trout follow the spinner for some distance, before it took it.
My catch had moved to four trout now, which felt better because I was thinking my luck had run out. It went quiet again for another thirty minutes until I had to get out of the water and bypass a deep pool, before re-entering the water a little further up. I wasn't all that keen on the dead wooded area that I had to make my way through either and it's now that time to be on the lookout for snakes. It doesn't have to be hot to have them out sunning themselves.
Once back in the stream, I felt more at ease and continued slowly fishing my way upstream. It wasn't until I came to a nice wide, knee-deep stretch of water that I had a light hit and miss on the first cast into it. Two casts later I was onto a small/medium size brown, a nice well-conditioned fish. A few casts later, directly to the top end of that stretch of water, I had another trout take the Aglia Fluo spinner and number six was landed.
I couldn't believe that I was catching them in twos at this stage. Not that I minded as it was better catching them in pairs every half an hour, rather than none at all. From then on it slowed down, with just the odd trout being caught in various small stretches of water. My catch was now nine trout caught and released. The good thing was that I hadn't need to change lures, just rub the little sharpening stone on treble hooks every so often to keep them sharp.
I was probably thirty metres or so from the car and about to call it a day, when I thought I would just finish the spin session by fishing one more short piece of water before hopping out. It was one of my better decisions too because I picked up two more trout in four casts. This took the tally to eleven trout in the end. It was my first double figure spin session for this trout season and one that was long overdue. I was stoked that I had made the decision to flick the spinner into that short piece of water. Had I not the score would have been another disappointing single figure ending.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used During my Trout Season:
TT Red Belly Spin Rod - RBS702L 7’ 1-3kg 2pce
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rod – CE-S-662UL-1 6’6” 2-6lb 2Pce
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-1000
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reel - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar HD Spin Reel – CHD-1000HA
Platypus Pulse Mono
Platypus Super 100 Mono
Platypus Pre-Test Mono
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners