Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Low Water Leven
Low Water Leven
I headed on back to the Leven River today, seeing as it had dropped to a much easier wading level. I was expecting it to be a lighter tannin colour too and was hoping it may produce a few more trout than my last trip five days ago. The conditions were great, with no wind, the river was flat and glassy, and yes a very light tannin colour. I could not have wanted it any better.
This time I started the spin session a little further downstream than my last trip and it was good to actually see the river bottom today. The river was down by at least twelve inches, now all I needed was the trout to be here in good numbers.
It was 7:40am when I started flicking the Aglia Furia up and across the river in the hope I'd be onto a fish early in the session. That didn't happen, in fact it was very quiet, with not a sign of a trout over roughly one hundred metres or more of river. I was certain I would have had a fish or two in this medium flowing stretch of river, but it wasn't to be and it was onto the next run of water.
The next stretch of water was the wide, slow flowing one that gave up a couple of trout on the last trip, when I wasn't expecting to catch any in it. After fishing my way up this long, slow flowing water and trying several different Mepps spinners (Aglia Mouche Noire, Black Fury gold & copper, Bugs and TW Streamer) I still didn't see a trout.
It wasn't until I reached the shallow fast water that I hooked and lost a small brown, then on the next cast I caught my first trout of the morning, a small brown that took the Aglia Furia. It had taken just over an hour to catch the first fish.
Two cast later I had another small brown take the spinner, so I now had three takes and caught two fish in four minutes. That's just how trout fishing can go, nothing for an hour and then two caught in quick time. It does also work the opposite way at times too. Those two trout were the only ones seen over the following two hundred metres of river, before I decided to head back to the car and try another long stretch of river a couple of kilometres further downstream.
It was 10:00am when I was finally back in the river and with the sun full on the water I wasn't feeling all that confident of catching all that many trout here, also given the river was wide, shallow and not a lot of high foliage along both sides of it.
I did start off using the Furia and had a follow from a half interested trout which made for a change of lure. I went for the black bladed Aglia Mouche Noire, mainly because of its dark colour along with the little red tag treble that's attached to the spinner. Not only that, it's also much like the Mepps Bug spinners, another dark coloured Mepps lure (Stone Fly and March Brown colours) that work well at this time of year in the rivers.
It did take just on thirty minutes before I picked up my third trout of the morning, followed on the very next cast with my fourth small brown, both in the same small fast water run. So far the trout had all been small fish, around the 240-260 gram range, which has been a bit of a letdown seeing as this river does hold some very decent size trout.
It was slow going again over the next fifty metres or so of river, though I did have two follows from a couple of decent size browns, of which one did have a bit of a go at the spinner. The sun overhead and full on the river was certainly having an effect on the fishing here now that's for sure. I felt that had it been an overcast day, this stretch of river may have fished much better and given up a few more trout.
I was probably one hundred metres away from where I had parked the "Trout Stalker 2" and when I reached it my day would be done. I caught and released one more small brown (295gm) and hooked and lost two others before I reached the "TS2".
Today wasn't the spin session I was hoping for at all, however given the bright sunny conditions, that came as the morning went on, I suppose five wasn't all that bad in the end. I'm not sure when I'll return to the river, maybe an overcast day will prevail in the following weeks and bring me back. I do intend to fish it over the last two weeks of the trout season as this is when it fishes at its best.
Adrian (meppstas)