Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Fast Water Trout Tips
Related Products...
Fast Water Trout Tips
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Adrian shares a river fast water session from prior to the Tasmanian trout season closure.
After spending the past day and a half in bed, recovering from lower back pain, this morning I felt well enough to head off for a spin session and to hopefully get onto a few trout. I had a reasonably poor January, with just three trips to the rivers and very few trout caught, so I really needed to up my catch rate. My destination was the Meander River and the area I was to fish was a nice slow/medium flowing stretch of river. One that's nice and easy on the body.
Before I left home, I checked the river height and saw that it was running at 65cm, which is a nice safe wading height. The closer I got to the Meander, the more I thought about heading to the fast water runs, instead of the slow/medium flowing waters of the river... and that's where I ended up.
Once there, I could see that the water was crystal clear, and it looked really good. I couldn't get my gear on quick enough to hit the fast waters of this beautiful river. It wasn't much after 8:30 am when I hit the water and I was feeling pretty confident of having a good catch rate of trout today, mainly because at this time of the season these fast waters generally fish well.
Before I go on with this report, here's a few tips that may be helpful to those of you who have never fished the fast waters of a river. If and when one's fishing from one side of the river, quite often there will be a flat water directly ahead of you. All that's required then is to cast the lure into it and retrieve the lure back downstream. Keeping the lure at same pace or at times a little faster than the flow, to keep the spinner blade rotating. A lot of the time, if there's trout in that flat water, it will take the spinner as soon as it hits the water, so be always alert when fishing directly upstream.
Any water that flows around a boulder/rock that's in a river is another area that will often have a trout sitting in the small flat water behind it. This is another area that one should not bypass. The one thing I love about fast water fishing is casting and drifting the Mepps inline spinner with the flow. It's only a matter of casting the lure into a small/medium or even a large flat water next to the riverbank and then letting the flow of the water take the lure downstream, while keeping the line tight and slowly retrieving the lure. It's a great way to fish for trout in any fast water run and it's quite a productive way to fish for trout in any fast-flowing river.
Normally, I would start the spin session of here with a March Brown coloured Mepps Bug or an Aglia Fluo Micropigment brown spinner. Today, the lure of choice to start with was a Mepps #1 Aglia Furia. Why? Because it was the set up that was already on the 6'6'' Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin 2-6lb ULS trout rod.
The decision to start with it was a good one too because it only took a few minutes of working the lure in the fast water before I hooked and landed my first small brown trout of the session. A few casts later I picked up another small trout and before I knew it, I had caught and released another two browns, with the fourth one being the best fish so far. Not a big fish, just a medium size 340g trout. I was feeling pretty stoked at this stage, with four trout caught and released in the first 15-20 minutes. Unfortunately, that's where it ended for around thirty minutes.
After hooking and losing two trout, I finally landed another small brown. After its release and a couple of lure changes (March Brown & Stone Fly Bug spinners) I went on to hook and lose another six trout, with two of them being nice solid fish. In the end I decided to give the #1 Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown spinner a go. It was a good choice as I caught and released another two small trout from three hook ups.
Looking at my watch, I noticed I had been in the river for three hours, with the trout being few and far between. Now I knew it wasn't worth my while to punish the body any longer. I was tired and sore, so my day was done. I was a little ticked off with how it played out, after such a good start. Then, had those eight hooked and lost trout stayed on, I would have said it was a top day fishing the fast waters. Like I often say, “that's trout fishing” isn't it.
All but one trout caught today were taken in the flat-water areas near the riverbanks. The other trout was caught from a small flat water behind a boulder in the river. On the way home I decided to check out a small stream. One that I hadn't fished for at least fifteen years. I flicked a #0 Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown spinner into a wide pool of water and to my surprise I caught a small (150mm) Australian grayling. These fish are a protected species and must be returned to the river. That was the only pool I fished while I was there. Had I bothered to put the wading gear on I may have picked up the odd trout further upstream. The water level was very low anyway, so it wasn't worth my while to fish it today. I'll leave it for another day, after we've had a decent dose of rain.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used Today:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods – CE-S-661UL-1 6'6'' ULS 2-6lb 2pce
Okuma Ceymar HD Spin Reels – CHD-1000HA
Platypus Pulse Mono Nylon Fishing Line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners -
Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments
Mepps Furia
Mepps Bug