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Lower Mersey River Trout
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
With some sour, windy weather due to arrive tonight, I felt a trip to the lower Mersey River area may be worthwhile. Even though the river was running at 77 cm, it was still worth seeing what trout may be there. It's a nice area to fish and it's not all that far from home, which is good. The only concern I had was the water height, as that is 7 cm too high for my liking. I prefer it to be 70 cm and lower when fishing this area.
By the time I arrived, parked the car, and crossed the river it was 10:30 am, which didn't matter all that much because it was nice and overcast. The hardest part was crossing the river, with the rocky river bottom being very slippery underfoot. Slow and easy was the only way to go. Facing upstream and slowly stepping sideways was the safest way to cross the river, especially with the water level being between my knees and waist. With each sideways step that I took, I had to ensure that I had a good footing, before taking the next step. One slip and I would get very wet.
Knowing a river, and where to cross it, is very important when river fishing that's for sure. Knowing the depth and force of the flow is also very important as well, so risk taking is not one of the things I do in any of the large rivers that I fish. So, if one isn't fully experienced with large river fishing then I advise them not to take any risks in waters that they have never fished before. Rivers like the Mersey and Meander have a regulated flow from the lakes in the highland areas and one can get caught out quite easily. So, make sure you know the river like the back of your hand before you fish it and see if there's another area that's safe to cross if the river does start to rise.
Anyway, back to the trout fishing. Once across the river I had a twenty-minute walk along what was once a beautiful backwater. Since the 2016 floods though it's now a wide, willow tree, boggy, and reed covered area, that's really tough on the body. For me it's the shortest route to the river, so that's the reason why I do the hard yards through here. By the time I've reached the river I'm certainly sucking in the air.
It was 10:50 am by the time I reached the river and as always it looked good. There was plenty of fast water flowing, which is always good for catching a rainbow trout or two at this time of the season. Seeing as I already had a Mepps #1 Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown inline spinner set up on the TT Red Belly 7', 1-3kg spin rod, I didn't bother to change to another lure. I had faith that the Aglia brown would do the job on the trout, providing they were here. What I did like here was that, from where I was standing on the edge of the river, the water was perfect for casting and drifting the Mepps inline spinner. This is something that I love doing when fast water fishing for trout.
The first cast was up and across the river, to where there was a slower flow, and from there I could bring the spinner back into the fast-flowing water and let it drift with it, while at the same time keeping the line tight by slowly retrieving. Well, I didn't have to let the lure drift all that far before it was smashed by a solid trout. At first, I felt it was one very large trout, seeing how hard it pulled and had the TT Red Belly bending over. Line peeled from the spool for a short time, until I tightened the drag just enough to stop it peeling the line from the spool.
I knew that I had it under control. The only thing that bothered me was how well it was hooked. It finally made a few leaps from the river, and I could see that it was a rainbow trout, but not as big as I thought it was. That's the thing that happens when one hooks a fish in fast waters. They all run across the river, then dart off downstream with the flow, and that is why they seem larger than they are. I kept the pressure on the rainbow, while at the same time I slowly retrieved the line. It didn't take all that long before the rainbow started to tire, and I had it in close enough to ease it into the net. It was a beautifully coloured, well-conditioned fish too, that tipped the digital scales at 460 grams, which was a good start.
After its release, and a little further upstream while fishing the same long fast water run, a large brown followed the spinner for quite some distance, before it turned and moved off, not to be seen again. That was pretty disappointing as I was sure it was going to take the Aglia brown spinner. It wasn't until I had reached the top end of that fast water run that I hooked up with a nice brown trout. Sadly, it didn't last all that long. One solid run and on its second leap from the river it tossed the spinner.
That was the last trout I saw for quite some time. It wasn't until 12:05 pm that I finally hooked and landed my second fish of the spin session. This was another rainbow trout and a nice one at that. It was a tad smaller than the one I had caught over an hour earlier, but it was still a nice fish and in very good condition. This fish was caught in a fast-flowing tailwater, and my next cast was straight back into the same area. No sooner had I started to retrieve the spinner and it was taken by a trout. This time it was a brown trout and it also made it into the net.
With only a small shallow and very fast flowing stretch of water ahead of me, which wasn't worthwhile fishing due to it running too fast, I decided to call it a day. The light breeze that was here when I arrived had become much stronger and I was body tired from slipping and sliding on the rocky river bottom. My lower back was telling me to get out of here and head back to the car, which I did.
Three trout caught and released wasn't all that bad in the end, even though I was probably lucky to have picked up the last two trout in two casts. It turned out to be a reasonably good spin session. I will make a few more trips here again, once the water level drops below the 70 cm mark and the weather warms up a little more than the twelve degrees that it was today.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used Today:
TT Red Belly Spin Rods – RBS702L 7’, 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono Premium Nylon Fishing Line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners – Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments