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First Double Figures for the Season
By Adrian (meppstas) WebbÂ
With more rain forecast and the larger rivers still running on the high side, I was back in the tannin waters again this afternoon. It was just after 12:20pm when I started the spin session off, using a #0 Mepps Aglia Fluo (micropigment) rainbow trout pattern spinner.
The first cast and retrieve, directly up the first wide stretch of water, resulted in an instant hook up. A brown trout had snapped it up in quick time and given me just the start that I wanted. With a score on the board so early in the session, I was hoping the trout would continue to be as aggressive as that fish was.
The last time I had fished this stream it had given up seven browns over a kilometre of water, which wasn't all that good. I was hoping for a big improvement today. A little further upstream and several casts later, all I had managed was the one follow from a medium size brown.
Just ahead of me I spotted a trout sipping something from the surface, in a flat water to the left side of a fast water run. This was my chance to catch the second of the day. Two cast and retrieves, well past where I spotted the trout, did draw the attention of it and that's as far as it went. After standing there looking at that shallow flat water and taking note that it was a lighter tannin colour than the deeper flowing water, I decided to try a #0 Mepps StoneFly coloured Bug spinner. The brighter coloured rainbow spinner may have been the reason that the trout wasn't aggressive.
The first couple of cast and retrieves into the flat water and there were no signs of the trout. It wasn't until I cast the lure upstream and retrieved it back along a bubble line, where the fast and flat water met, that the trout took the spinner. It wasn't a big fish, just a small/medium size brown that was in top condition.
After the release of trout number two and a couple of changes of lures, before I settled on a #0 Mepps Aglia Fluo brown trout model, it took close on thirty minutes before I finally picked up my third trout. Ten minutes on and I had my fourth trout landed, with things looking up.
I still had at least seven hundred metres of stream left to fish and with any luck I was looking like finally breaking the double figure catch for the first time for the season. Providing the weather held out for me and the trout switch on I thought I just may do it.
Well, it all went quiet for a while and after what felt like a long time, I caught the fifth trout of the session. In fact it had only taken twenty five minutes after the last trout was caught and during that time I did have a hit and a miss. The weather wasn't looking all that good and with dark heavy clouds building up, if felt like the rain may not have been all that far off. I thought I had better up the pace and fish, and get a move on before the rain arrived.
From here on I started to pick up a trout every ten minutes. They had certainly become pretty aggressive towards the #0 Aglia Fluo brown trout spinner. I wasn't sure if it was from my choice of colour or if it was the weather that had turned them on. Whatever it was I didn't care... but I'd like to think it was my selection of lure that did it.
The wind had picked up and with the odd light shower of rain now passing by, the air temperature had dropped right off. It was becoming pretty cold. The only good thing about it was the trout. They were still aggressive and before I knew I had caught my tenth trout, making it the first double figure catch of the 2020/21 season.
I wasn't all that far from where I had parked the car and after I had released the tenth trout I did think about calling it a day, however then decided to fish on a little longer. After losing four trout in a row, I went on to catch another four small/medium size browns and then lost a couple more small trout. It was then I called it a day.
I finished the afternoon spin session with fourteen trout caught and released, from eighteen hook ups, in the three and a half hours I spent in the stream. I was feeling pretty good after it too. Finally the trout were back here in good numbers and better still they were aggressive, which made my day. Three of the trout were good size fish that ranged from 360 grams up to the biggest one being a 420 gram fish, while the rest were all small to medium size browns. The Mepps Aglia Fluo brown trout inline spinner caught twelve of the fourteen trout on the day as well.
*PS: I had a brain fade during the making of the video clip when I said I had caught thirteen trout... I counted the fourteenth as trout number thirteen as well.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment used on various trout trips:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg trout rods
Okuma LRF Spin Rods - Split Grip 1-3kg
Okuma Inspira Blue Spin Reels - ISX-20B
Okuma Helios SX Spin Reels - HSX-20
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reels - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar Spin Reels - C-10
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament Fishing Line
Platypus Pre-Test Monofilament Fishing Line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Boomerang Tool Products