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Hitting 350 the Hard Way

By Adrian (meppstas) Webb

Sometimes things are never as easy as they sound… two days left in January to catch two trout and reach trout number 350 for the season. That should be quite easy, shouldn't it? Well, it wasn't. Here's how I struggled to reach the 350. Never take things for granted.

Day One: Small tannin stream - 7:55am to 10:30am

As the title states, getting my 350th trout in the net wasn't easy at all. With just two trout needed to reach it, I certainly did it the hard way. Every time I get close to achieving something, for one reason or another it never comes easy for me. In a way I suppose that's a good thing, but just for once it would be nice to reach it without any hiccups along the way.

Like today for instance, when I headed over to one of my favourite small tannin streams, where I thought it would be a simple matter of catching two trout to reach the 350th trout before the end of January. Now, I don't normally fish the small tannin waters at this time of the year, unless we've had some decent rainfall, which we did have a week ago. When I arrived at the stream, I could see it was on the low side, however to me it still looked good enough to hop in and catch a few trout.

The tannin water was still on the dark coloured side of things, which I felt would be in my favour, so I started the session off with a small #00 copper coloured Mepps Aglia Mouche Rouge inline spinner. The first stretch of water that I moved into was a long, narrow, shallow one. There I had a trout follow the spinner on the third cast and retrieve and that's as far as it went.

As I slowly fished my way up that long stretch of water, I made several changes of small Mepps spinners, including a plain Aglia gold, gold Aglia Mouche Noire, March Brown Bug, and an Aglia Fluo Micropigment brown lure. The trout were there in quite a few stretches of water, however, with it being so low, the slightest noise was enough to see them dart off. Even the small, light, 1.5g spinner was enough to spook them when it hit the water after a long cast up the stream.

In the end I went back to a well-used, old, copper Mepps Aglia Mouche Rouge, and it was that little lure that caught my one and only trout of the spin session. It had taken sixty-five minutes to catch the first fish of the morning. After that I fished on for another hour and a half. So many chances went begging in that time, after hooking and losing five trout. The sun was well overhead and shining on the water. I knew I was wasting my time here, so I called it a day. What a fizzer it was too.

Day Two: Meander River - 8:10am to 10:35am

After yesterday's fizzer of a spin session, today I headed over to the Meander River in what was a cool foggy morning to start with. Today was my last chance to catch one more trout and reach 350 before the end of January. That's why I headed to the Meander River, where I was sure to do it with ease. Well, how wrong was I as it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

The first area on the Meander River, that I headed to, was a nice stretch of water that had a mix of medium and fast water runs. I knew I would catch at least one trout with ease. When I arrived at the river it was running a little higher than I expected. Still, that wasn't a problem at all. It was still at a safe wading height anyway.

Once in the river, I was feeling quite confident that it wouldn't be all that long before I had a trout in the net. I started flicking around a #0 March Brown coloured Mepps Bug spinner, a spinner that always does well in this river. It wasn't all that long before I spotted a small brown trout coming up behind the spinner as I slowly retrieved it. A couple of light twitches of the rod tip should be enough to get it to take the lure. It didn't take the spinner. That little trout still sat behind the lure for a short distance, before it moved off not to be seen again.

A little further up the river and the same thing happened again and again, still with no takers and to make matters worse the rocky river bottom had quite a lot of green, blade spinner fouling, algae on it. I lasted forty minutes in the river here, before I decided to head over to the fast waters where I was certain to catch a few trout. This time of year, the fast waters are great for catching trout. Cooler water, with plenty of oxygen in it for the trout, would make it a piece of cake for sure.

When I finally arrived there, I could see the river was really on the high side and the going would be tough. It would be a case of going very slow and easy here. With the river being higher than when I normally fish here, I knew that it was going to be tough. There would be no crossing from one side of the river to the other at all, due to the force of the fast water. It wasn't safe enough to take any chances here today.

After standing by the river, I decided that the best and safest side of the river to fish from was the lefthand side, so that's what I did. Once in the river, I could feel the force of the water against my legs, so each step forward was slow and easy, making sure that I had a good footing between the rocks before each step forward was taken. Thankfully, there was a lot of foliage along it as well, which gave me something to hang onto at times, especially when the water was above the knees as I made my way upstream.

I started off using the March Brown coloured Bug here too, casting it into the very few flat waters that were available. Normally there's trout in them, however they weren't today. I was starting to wonder if I had made the right choice to head over here. Should I have persevered where I was previously. I'm here now I thought, so I would just have to stick to it. Sooner or later surely a trout would bob up and take a spinner.

Still not having a trout come up behind the March Brown, I changed over to a #0 Aglia Fluo Micropigment brown lure, another Mepps model that works well on the trout in this river. It wasn't all that long after changing lures that I had the spinner on the drift and a small brown took it. One leap from the river and it was gone. Another cast straight ahead of me into a small flat water and I had a solid hit from a trout on the retrieve. It missed taking the treble hook.

I just kept saying to myself, patience Adrian, just be patient, you will have one in the net sometime soon. Five minutes later, as I was letting the Aglia brown drift with the fast-flowing water, a small brown trout took the lure. At last, it was fish on! This little brown did it's best to toss the spinner, making quite a few leaps from the river. Being a small fish, it tired quite fast and I slipped it into the net.

Trout number 350 for the 2021/22 trout season was caught. I can't say how relieved I was to see that little trout in the net. I was going to call it a day then and there but decided to fish a little longer. It was a good thing that I did too as I caught a small/medium size rainbow trout. Catching that rainbow trout was quite a surprise too, as the last time I caught one here was back in the 2019/21 trout season. To me, seeing this rainbow was a sign that they're may have been some spawning size fish in the upper reaches of the river. I hope I'm right as it would be great to see a mix of browns and rainbows in the Meander River.

Once I released that rainbow I fished on for another five or so minutes, before getting out and heading back to the car. So, as you see, catching the 350th trout of the season wasn't as simple as I thought it would be. It was certainly done the hard way, that's for sure.

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 Aglia Mouche Noire
Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments
Mepps Bug
Mepps Aglia