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Low Water Wild Trout
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Today's weather was not as good as I was hoping for as it was bright, sunny conditions with a north easterly wind blowing at 15kph. This makes for a tough time in the small tannin stream that I was heading to this morning. It was also a day to be on the lookout for snakes as it was perfect weather conditions for them to be out and about.
I was a little slow off the mark in heading to the stream, due to the long spin session that I had yesterday. The body was a little on the sore side this morning. By the time I walked (1.5km) and reached the stream, it was 9:20 am. A little late given the conditions that were forecast. The stream had dropped in level as I had expected it to. Any lower and I wouldn't have fished it.
Today I started off using a Gold #00 Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire, just for something different, to see if the trout would take it in the low, light tannin waters. This 1.5km of water is very tight fishing as it is pretty narrow over the distance. The foliage isn't as thick and is more open than other areas that I've previously fished. The first stretch of water fished was a mix of sun and shade and it was here that I had a hit and miss on the fourth cast.
On the fifth cast a gust of wind hit side on and carried the spinner into the tea trees at the top end of the water that I was fishing. Tea trees are like bushes that don't let go of a lure once it's in them. The good thing was that the lure was in reach and easy to get at. The bad thing was that by making my way upstream to retrieve it, any trout in the area would be gone.
In the next narrow run of water, the same thing happened again. This time it was dead wood and branches on the right hand side that the wind gust took the lure into. It took me several minutes to untangle it this time. I was beginning to think that perhaps I should have stayed home as I felt that I was starting to lose the plot. It hadn't been one of my best starts to a spin session, in fact it had probably been my worst all season.
Thirty minutes later and some fifty metres further upstream, I was finally onto my first trout of the morning. It was a plump medium size fish at that and like all of the others I'd caught on previous trips, it was in top condition. This trout was taken at the top end of a small stretch of water and thankfully it liked the Gold Aglia Mouche Noire.
It was close on fifteen minutes when I moved into the largest and deepest stretch of water in this little stream, a stretch of waist deep water that's divided in two by a large fallen tree. After having a hit and miss in the first couple of cast and retrieves, it wasn't until I flicked the spinner close to the fallen tree that a nice brown (325g) snapped up the little Mouche Noire.
After its release I slipped myself over the fallen tree and started fishing the second half of the deeper stretch of water. It wasn't long and I had a hit, but missed it. Two casts later and another brown (310g) took the gold spinner. I was feeling a lot happier now, with three nice, well-conditioned trout caught and released. Better still, they were on the gold bladed Aglia Mouche Noire, that I took a gamble on for starters.
After that, the following few narrow stretches of water didn't give up a fish. I was still hooking the odd tea tree though, in the trying conditions! The next section of water that I moved into (10:30am) was a lot shallower and lighter in colour, so I changed over to the March Brown coloured Mepps Bug spinner. This was the same lure that had done so well on the trout the day before.
The first half of the sun filled water and there wasn't a sign of a fish. It wasn't until I was into the second half of it that I cast into a narrow piece of head water (10:35am) and a solid brown followed the spinner into the open water and took it. This fish was the best one of the day so far and it fought like hell in the shallow water. Like all stream/river wild trout, this fish played up all the way to the net.
As it turned out it was the biggest of the spin session, a 345 gram beauty. From here on the trout were caught in ten to fifteen minute intervals, in the shallow and knee deep waters. From 10:35am through to 11:10am I caught and released six trout. With nine trout caught in total, I wanted another double figure catch before calling it a day. The way it was going I thought I'd reach it fairly soon.
Well that didn't happen for quite some time and after having several solid hits and one hooked and lost fish, it wasn't until 12:28pm that I finally hooked and landed my tenth trout of the spin session. I couldn't believe how long it took to catch that last trout. The water that I fished was a lot shallower the further upstream that I went. I still had the hits from trout as I had earlier, just couldn't hook them.
In the end I did achieve the double figures that I wanted, topping off a day of highs and lows in the little tannin stream that had given up 47 trout in four trips. There is some rain forecast in a couple of days and hopefully it's enough to get some good flow back into these little tannin streams.
Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg trout rod
Okuma Helios SX Spin Reels - HSX-20
Platypus Super 100 monofilament fishing line
Platypus Pre-Test monofilament fishing line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Boomerang Tool Products
Adrian (meppstas)