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Gold, Flavour of the Day
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
With a change of weather forecast for later in the day, this morning I decided to head back to the same small tannin stream that I fished yesterday and commence fishing from where I had finished yesterday's spin session. It was 8:40am when I eased myself down the side of a one and a half metre high riverbank and into the stream. I was using the same Okuma setup that I finished with yesterday, when I caught my 400th trout. Like they say, when you're on a good thing stick to it.
Once I was in the water, I did think about changing the small gold #00 Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire spinner for a White Miller Mepps Bug spinner, however I decided not to make the change. My first cast was into a nice short, medium flowing run of water and on the retrieve, nothing happened… until I was about to raise the spinner from the water and that's when a trout came out of nowhere and took the lure! It took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting such a late hit on the lure.
Anyway, as it turned out it was a nice well-conditioned trout that fought hard all the way into the net. No sooner was it in the net and out popped the lure. I don't know what's going on, but lately each time I get a trout into the net, the lure pops out. Not that I mind because it saves me having to handle them to remove the hook.
A little further up the stream I had a hit and miss, in a shallow medium flowing stretch of water and that was enough for me to make another cast into it. This time, as I retrieved the spinner, another trout came at the lure in a rush and took it. With the water being shallow it thrashed about for a while, before I eased it onto the sandy riverbank. This fish, like the last one, was just a medium size trout and in top condition. This one didn't toss the spinner either, however it wasn't all that long before I had removed the hook and it was released back into the water.
That fish was caught twenty minutes after my first trout was released (9:00am). I was hoping the next one wouldn't take as long to catch. Like yesterday, with the White Miller, as I sharpened the well-used treble hooks on this little lure, I pressed too hard on it and broke a hook. So, I removed another hook and turned it into a single hook spinner, instead of a treble.
The next stretch of water I had a trout come up behind the lure and follow it for a short distance, before it turned and headed into deeper water. One thing that I did notice was how much the water level had dropped in this stream since yesterday. It was down by several inches.
Most of the stream ahead of me was shallow runs and as I approached them trout were darting off from the tail end of them and heading in under small riverbank washouts. Thankfully, knowing this stream like I do, I bypassed a few areas and fished the runs that I knew had water deep enough to hold trout and retrieve a lure through without it bottom bouncing.
It wasn't until I reached a wide-open area on the stream, that had some cover along the deeper, righthand side of it, making it well worth having a few casts and retrieves into, that I had some more action. It was on the third cast and retrieve, as I worked the spinner back along the right side of the stream, that a trout took the lure. It didn't take long to get this little trout into the net.
It had taken a lot longer to catch my third trout than I would have liked. In fact, it was caught fifty minutes after the second trout. I knew the shallow water was the main reason for the lack of trout being caught. They were here and like I stated earlier the slightest noise was enough to spook them. Once this fish was released, I moved into the next shallow water section. This one was much narrower but still had a nice twenty centimetres of water along the right side of it. That's where I sent the lure on the first cast and as I started to retrieve the little Aglia Mouche Noire it was picked off by another trout. In no time at all, I had another trout landed. With four trout now caught and released things were looking up and I wanted more of them to show the same aggression as the last two did.
From then on it was well and truly on the quiet side. There were a few trout darting off, as I approached several shallow runs. The deeper waters that I fished showed no sign of a trout to be had. It reached 10:55am without another trout being caught, plus I was getting tired of climbing over log jams, so I decided to call it a day.
Once I had made my way out of the stream and into some open area, I thought I would bypass the bad areas I knew were there and I hop back in the stream a hundred metres ahead. It was a battle getting back through the thick scrub to reach the stream however it was well worth the effort of doing it. Once I was back into open, deeper water, it was on the third cast and retrieve that a solid trout took the spinner.
As soon as it was hooked, I knew that this was the best trout of the session so far. It stayed deep, pulled hard and made several runs, before it eventually broke the surface. That's when I knew I had it under control. Once on the surface, it soon tired and I eased it into the net, where I removed the spinner and weighed it at the same time. It was the best fish by far, weighing 470g after deducting the 300g weight of the net from the total weight.
A little further up I had a few trout follow the spinner without taking it and that's when I decided to fish one more, small pocket of water and then call it a day. As I approached the next stretch of water, I also went for a change of lure. This time it was a plain gold #00 Aglia, that went on the spiral swivel. Two casts and retrieves later and it was fish on again. Another solid brown had snapped up the gold Aglia in quick time and I had my sixth trout of the day in the net.
With several more log jams ahead of me, that was enough to make the call to head back to the car. Not only that, a light drizzle had also arrived. I was quite happy with how the spin session had turned out, with another half dozen trout being caught and released. This made it a dozen trout all up, in two spin sessions here, which is as good as it gets given the conditions.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used During My Trout Season:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg
Okuma LRF Spin Rods – 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels – ITX-1000
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 Pulse Mono Premium Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Pre-test Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner
Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire