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Finicky Trout
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
After yesterday's below average spin session, today I headed over to another of my favourite small streams, this one located on private property. This small stream is more open to the elements, as it runs through wide open spaces of farming land. On a good day though, it does give up plenty of small/medium size wild brown trout.
This trip was a midday start, it was 12:15pm when I hopped in the river, only to find it was running low, clear and the river bottom had quite a lot of green algae covering it. To make matters worse, the river was in full sun and an easterly breeze had arrived as soon as I was in the river. With those four things against me, I knew that I was in for a tough spin session.
I started the session off using a Mepps #0 Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown spinner and had a few hits on it in no time at all. Those hits were all from very small trout, with just one of them being hooked and lost. After having five hits and one lost trout, I changed spinners. It was off with the heavier Mepps Aglia Brown and on with the small, 1.5 gram, Mepps Gold Aglia Mouche Noire. Even though I was fishing in full sun for most of the time, I knew that the small gold spinner does perform very well in these small rivers/streams.
The change of lure worked in no time, and I finally hooked and landed the first trout of the spin session. Nothing big, just a nice plump medium size, well-conditioned fish. A little further up I hooked and lost another small brown trout. This fish was that small that I just cracked up laughing as it was no bigger than a sardine. As I continued to fish my way upstream, I kept on having hits but no hook ups. The trout were hitting the lure hard and fast, without hooking up.
I went for another change of lure, as I approached a deeper, fast flowing stretch of water, and this time I went for a Mepps #0 Black Fury with orange dots on the gold blade. It only took one cast into a small deep pocket of water, close to the riverbank, and the spinner was taken as soon as it hit the water. This trout was a little smaller than the first trout, caught twenty minutes earlier, and thankfully it made it into the net.
After releasing that fish, I moved into a nice wide-open stretch of knee deep, medium flowing water and had a trout follow the Black Fury on the first cast and retrieve. That's all that happened, the trout didn't want the spinner. That was enough for me to go back to the small Gold Aglia Mouche Noire spinner, seeing as it caught the first trout and had several hits and misses from others.
The day wasn't going as planned. It was pretty poor at this stage, with having so many hits from finicky trout. I was sure that the weather had a lot to do with it as the low-pressure system was moving in from the east. I decided that I would continue to fish my way up to the bridge, where I had parked the car. Once there I would head off to another long stretch of the river a couple of kilometres further upstream.
As luck would have it, well sort of, I did manage to catch and release two more trout by the time I reached the bridge and two more just the other side of the bridge. In the time I had spent catching and releasing those four trout, I also hooked and lost a few more small trout. It was time to move onto the next stretch of river.
Once I arrived at my next destination, I took a fifteen-minute walk to where I entered the river. It was 2:00pm when I was finally back in the water. It didn't take all that long before I had a trout or two follow the Mepps Aglia Mouche spinner. I also had a few small trout the size of sardines hit the lure, with one of them being hooked and then tossing the spinner just a quick as it took it.
I had a feeling that I probably should have headed for home when I got back to the car, instead of heading to where I was. I tried a couple of other Mepps spinners, such as the small #00 March Brown and Stone Fly coloured Bug spinners. Neither of them drew the attention of a trout, so I went back to the Aglia Mouche Noire.
The further I headed upstream, the stronger the wind became and the more ticked off I was becoming. Finally, after forty minutes without catching trout, one came out of nowhere, took the little Aglia spinner and trout number seven was landed. From there on it was quiet, with barely a sign of a trout, I was getting tired of the howling wind, and I was ready to toss in the towel.
Seeing as I wasn't all that far from where I had parked the car I fished on for a little longer. In that time, I did manage to catch and release one very small brown trout. I also hooked and lost two more trout. My day was done, with just eight trout caught and released in what was probably one of the most frustrating days spent in the water so far this season. I suppose I should be happy that I caught and released eight trout this afternoon as when I look back on it, well, it could have been much worse.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg Trout Rod
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners -
Mepps Aglia Micropigments
Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner
Mepps Black Fury