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Lady Luck Brown
21-9-18 Lady lucks helps out with my best brown trout for this season.?
With the rivers still running high and the weather being fine for a change, I decided I was going to chase the trout by hook or by crook. I didn't have an early start either as it wasn't until 10:30am that I finally slipped into the river. The water was running at a medium to high level, so I fished the stretches of water that I knew were safe enough to wade.
After many years of fishing the rivers, this is where knowing every bit of each river I fish pays off. I never take any risks when fishing rivers as life is too short, plus it's not worth drowning oneself either. One good thing was that the water temp today was up to seven degrees and that's the warmest it's been since the end of the last trout season. I set myself a small target of catching and releasing five trout for the session, mainly because of the water flowing high and fast in most stretches if river.
I was a little undecided on what Mepps lure to start off with today, before finally making the choice to go with the Aglia Tiger Fluoro mainly because of the water temp still being a little low. Once the water temp gets to nine degrees and above then the Mepps gold or copper blade spinners will be given a good workout.
It wasn't all that easy working my way upstream in fast water that was above the knees where I started fishing.
The fishing was pretty slow to start with too, until I came to a small flat water that was between the river bank and a large old fallen tree that was laying in the river. The first cast and retrieve into this little flat water resulted in a medium size brown trout being caught and released.
A little further up there was another fallen tree on the right hand side of the river and it too had a nice flat water behind it. It took three casts and retrieves into that flat water before another medium size brown took the spinner and was landed.
A little further up I started to cross the river, where some recent work had been done in it and that work had exposed some large runs of solid rock. The river height here was halfway between my knees and waist, and it was quite tough pushing my way across the river here. It was still safe enough but the footing underneath wasn't great since the work had been done on it. As I went to step onto the solid rock my left foot slipped and I went down heavily on my left knee. Hell it hurt and at first I thought I had cracked my knee cap, but with a bit of a rub and massage it wasn't all that bad, so I fished on.
I had to bypass a deep stretch of river, before I re-entered into a nice long, wide, medium flowing run that was perfect for the cast and drift method I like use. A few casts up and across the river, while letting the spinner drift with the flow and a very slow retrieve, and I had a take from a medium size brown. That brown made a couple of solid runs before tossing the spinner on its second head shaking leap from the river.
After that I had a few light hits and follows from a two more brown trout?before I decided it was time to try a hard body lure. I went for a new small 5cm / 3gm lure in a brook trout pattern that I picked up a few weeks ago from Justackle in Burnie. It only took a few casts across the river with it before it was taken by a nice solid brown that put up one hell of a fight in the fast flowing water. This wasn't a massive fish but the flow was helping it win the battle while it was midstream. Once I managed to get it in closer, it slowly tired and was soon in the net. It weighed 540 grams and was in excellent condition as have all the trout been that I've caught so far this season.
I fished on for another thirty minutes with no sign of a fish, so it was time to head back to the car which was around a kilometre away. With a lot of deep fast water ahead of me it wasn't worth fishing until the river level drops by at least 20cm.
Once back at the car I remembered that I had to cross over a small creek on the way home, so I left the wading gear on because I thought I'd have a quick flick in it before heading back to Sheffield. Twenty minutes later I was in the creek flicking the Fluoro Aglia around and I had quite a few follows from some nice medium size browns.
That's all that they were doing though was just following the spinner, with no signs of aggression. I slowed the retrieve, twitched the lure and nothing I did enticed them to take the spinner. This meant a change of lure was in order and it was on with a gold / black hard body because it has caught trout here before when nothing else has.
Nothing happened over the first hundred metres of water and I was about to call it a day, but like all fishos I thought the next stretch of water looked fishy and worth flicking the lure into. That was my best decision of the day. The first cast directly upstream and as soon as the lure hit the water it was taken hard and fast by a ripper of a brown trout. This was a beauty for such a small creek and it gave me quite a battle that lasted for close on five minutes, before I finally had it in the net.
The reason it took me so long to land is that it took me into a fast water run and with thin 4lb mono one can't rush it. It had run down past me, then it turned and came back upstream, before turning and running downstream again. It did this a few times, plus I lost count of how many times it leaped from the water, even crocodile rolling a couple of times, which always worries me because that's normally when one will lose the fish.
Luckily it unrolled itself and swam back up past me, before it turned and headed back downstream again. This fish was still full of fight and I knew that this was my best and maybe my last chance of netting it in this fast water. As it passed me I placed the net in front of it and it went straight into it. Thankfully I had my deep landing net with me today, otherwise I feel it would have jumped straight out of the smaller net that I frequently carry.
This is when 'Lady Luck' was on my side, as no sooner was it in the net that the fine 4lb mono parted ways some 50mm above the lure. So, had I not slipped the net in front of the fish when I did, I doubt it would have been caught in the end. A couple of quick photos and that lovely 1.4kg (3lb, 1oz) brown was back in the water and on its way. That was the end of my day's fishing, one that lasted a total of four hours and fifteen minutes in the water. It was also nice to see a platypus in the water as that means that the creek is in a very healthy state.