Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Late Start 26-11-2018

Late Start 26-11-2018

After deciding the night before I was going to hit the water early, I woke up and was very slow getting myself up and on the move. I was so slack that I didn't hit the water until just after 9:00am, when the sun was well up and fully on the water. The only good thing was that there was a bit of cloud cover every so often, however nearly not enough to keep the sun off the water.

The little tannin stream had a nice flow to it, from recent rainfall a few days ago and I started the spin session off using a small copper #00 Aglia Mouche Noire spinner. It was quiet over the first fifteen minutes, with just a few light hits and misses from some very small browns trout. I changed lures, this time opting for a Mepps #00 gold Aglia and it wasn't all that long after the changeover that I picked up my first brown trout. It was only a small fish that was quickly released. Twenty metres further upstream and I picked up another small trout, then lost the following two fish in quick time.

The gold lure was doing the job really well, however I wanted to see how a black bladed Aglia would go in the dark tannin water, making another change. It took two casts into a wide long stretch of water before I had a small trout take it as quick as the spinner hit the water. A few casts later and I hooked and lost another small brown trout on it before I went back to the gold #00 Aglia.

The sun was still on the water and it had some heat in it too, the weather had become quite humid. I had to get out and bush bash a couple of times to get around some logs jams. The first thing that came to mind was 'snakes'. I can tell you now, I made quite a lot of noise stomping the ground as I made my way through long grass to get around each log jam. All good, I never spotted one of those slippery suckers.

Once back in the river I continued to keep on getting hit after hit from small brown trout but couldn't hook one of them. They were just coming hard and fast at the spinner and having one hit at it before darting off. I continued to cast the spinner into what shaded areas there were on the water and that's where the trout were holding out. They would chase the spinner into the open water and have one crack at the spinner, with most of them missing being hooked. They were just having the one go at the spinner. Open water in full sun is something trout don't like.

Finally I had a run of catching a few small browns and finished the session with seven small trout being caught and released from nine hook ups. I did have around fifteen to seventeen hits and misses during my time in the water. I'm sure had I got my act together and been on the water early the end result would have been much better. I'm still stumped as to where the larger trout have vanished to. They were here throughout last season but no sign of them this season. The best one caught in this stream so far was a well-conditioned 340g brown trout.