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Double Figure Catch and Trout 200
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
After a day's rest it was time to head back to the small tannin stream, especially while there was still plenty of flow in it. Plus, there was another good reason to head back there, I needed four more trout to reach my trout number 200 for the 2023/24 trout season. Today I wanted to get the job done and reach the target. This time I headed to another area on the stream a kilometre or so downstream from where I fished two days ago.
The weather conditions were still good, with overcast skies, and the water level was still running at a good height, so my chances of reaching the target were good. My start to the spin session was an hour earlier than the last trip because I was keen to get the job done as early as possible. I was in the water by 7:50 am and I had my first trout caught and released by 7:54 am. It was a small trout that was caught and released first, and I was also using the same setup that I finished with the other day. When you're on a good thing, stick to it, isn't that what they say?
Well, once that trout was released it turned out to be a bit of a struggle. Yes, the trout were there, but they were a little on the fussy side at this stage. I felt that it was because the area that I was fishing at the time was very open, with only a small cover of foliage along the stream. As I slowly made my way upstream, I tried several Mepps spinners, including the Bug, Aglia Fluo Micropigments Brown and eventually went for the small #00 gold Mepps Aglia.
That little lure caught the next trout, some twenty-five minutes after the first fish was caught. I had to hop out of the river and bypass a wide deep stretch of water so that I could get back into the shallow tannin waters that was close to one hundred metres upstream. Even there the trout were fussy. I tried several different inline spinners again until a small brown fell to the White Miller Bug spinner. I found it a little hard to believe just how fussy the trout had been in the two trips so far. Normally I only had to make a couple of lure changes when fishing this small stream.
After having several hits and misses on the White Miller Bug it was time for another lure change. This time it was the ever-reliable March Brown coloured Mepps Bug that went on the small snap swivel. Twenty-five minutes later and I finally caught my fourth trout of the spin session. Nothing big, just a medium size fish. After its release the trout fishing went back to how they had been most of the time so far, very quiet.
Another lure change had to be made and while I was going through my Mepps lure boxes I came across a well-used, old #0 copper Black Fury. Why not give this a run I said to myself. So, on the swivel it went. That turned out to be a very good move and from there on the trout fishing changed from being very few trout caught to quite a few being caught in reasonably quick time. The copper Mepps Black Fury had turned things around for me.
Not only did I catch my trout number 200 soon after changing to the copper Black Fury, I also went on to catch and release a total of seven trout from ten hookups on it. It was the faster flowing stretches of water that gave up most trout today. The copper #0 Black Fury spinner turned out to be the lure of the day by far and as much as I wanted to continue fishing with it, I couldn't. My back was giving me hell and I had to call it a day.
I wasn't all that happy about having to head back to the car, but I knew I had to quit and take the twenty-minute walk to where the car was parked. On the positive side, I did achieve what I set out to do on this trip, reaching trout number 200 for the season, and that's really all that matters. My aim now is to catch the 300 trout before the end of December, so we'll see how it all pans out from here on.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used Today:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods – CEL-S-602UL-1 6’0”, 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Premium Mono Fishing Line – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 4lb
Mepps Inline Spinners -
Mepps Aglia
Mepps Bug
Mepps Black Fury
Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments