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Late Afternoon Trout
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
In the lead up to a new Tassie trout season, Adrian shares a trip from last season to the upper reaches of the Mersey River, with a late start and some fish on the Mepps inline spinners. Fish on!
I wasn't going fishing at all today... however, by late afternoon, I decided I should get as many fishing trips in as I could before the weather was due to turn sour in a few days. The weather was quite good. A little windy at Sheffield when I left, but quite good when I arrived (2:45 pm) at my destination at the upper reaches of the Mersey River. The area itself was pretty well sheltered from the wind. The main problem was the smoke that was in the area, caused by several forestry burn off fires that were going on in the area.
Once I had my wading gear on and the TT Red Belly spin rod in hand, coupled up with an Okuma ITX-1000 spinning reel, I headed off to the river. I decided to bypass the first half a kilometre of slow flowing river because my aim was to fish the fast waters this afternoon. It was 2:55 pm when I finally entered the river. The stretch of river that I wanted to start fishing in was fast flowing and one where I felt I had a good chance of catching a trout or two to start off the session, before moving to my favourite fast flowing waters a few hundred metres further upstream.
After spending twenty minutes fishing the fast waters, without a sign of a trout, it was time to move further upstream to the faster flowing waters that I knew would give up a few trout. To reach that long run of fast flowing water, I had to bypass another wide, slow/medium flowing stretch of river. By the time I reached the tail end of the yet to be fast waters, I had given the Mepps Aglia Furia and Bug inline spinners a bit of a workout, without having a single touch from a trout. On previous trips here this tailwater has always given up a few rainbows as well a brown trout or two... today it didn't.
From there I moved into the fast-flowing waters and while doing so I also went for a change of lure. This time it was the Mepps gold #1 Aglia TW Streamer inline spinner that I thought I would try. It's a new lure that I've added to my arsenal of Mepps inline spinners and the change over to the TW lure was a good one. Even though I had a couple of soft hits from trout on it, the next five minutes or so was a little on the quiet side.
It wasn't until I was right into the fast-flowing waters that it all turned around and I caught the first trout (3:50 pm) of the afternoon. It was also the fish that I had expected to catch. A nice medium size rainbow was the first fish caught for the session. A little further up the river and I was onto another nice trout. This time it was a well-conditioned brown trout that fell (4:00 pm) to the Aglia TW lure. Why I had never had this lure in my mix of lures when trout fishing, I have no idea, but now I have I'm happy I have added it to my kit.
This was the start that I was hoping for in this fast water and I did continue catching the trout here, although they weren't in big numbers. Most of the trout were caught five to ten minutes apart, with most of them being caught while casting the spinner up and across the river, before letting the lure drift with the fast-flowing water.
Casting and drifting a Mepps inline spinner in fast-flowing water is a great way to catch trout. In fact, it's my favourite way of catching them and it's not hard to do either. What you must look for is a small or narrow flatwater that's next to the opposite riverbank. Cast the lure upstream and into it, then slowly retrieve the lure back out of the flatwater. Once the lure is out of it, the the fast-flowing water takes over and all one must do is to keep the line tight and let the spinner drift with the flow, while at the same time keeping the rod parallel to the water. As the spinner drifts with the flow, you must ensure that you keep the line tight. That's easy as it's only a matter of slowly retrieving the line as the lure drifts with the flow.
If the fast water is a shallow run, keep the rod tip higher so that the lure isn't bottom bouncing. It's ideal to always keep the lure mid water. I went on to catch and release two more rainbows and four browns, in what I felt was a reasonably good session in the end. All up at the end of the day the best trout was a brown trout that weighed in at 485g and the best of the rainbows was a nice solid 335g fish. It was a good couple of hours spent chasing trout today and even better was the new addition to my tackle box that caught every trout today. The equipment listed below is perfect for trout fishing the rivers/streams here in Tasmania. In fact, it's perfect for fishing for any species of fish in the rivers/streams across Australia.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used During my Trout Season:
TT Red Belly Spin Rod - RBS702L 7’ 1-3kg 2pce
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rod – CE-S-662UL-1 6’6” 2-6lb 2Pce
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-1000
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reel - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar HD Spin Reel – CHD-1000HA
Platypus Pulse Mono
Platypus Super 100 Mono
Platypus Pre-Test Mono
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners