Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Mayfly Hatch the Highlight 19-3-2021
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Mayfly Hatch the Highlight 19-3-2021
I was on my way to fish the Meander River, however after checking the time (8:10am) I found it was a little late to head there, so I detoured to the Mersey River at Weegena which was a shorter distance to travel.
Once there I could see trout surface feeding below the bridge, which meant there was a lot of insect life around and this would make for a tough time catching the trout. After seeing that, I wished I had got up earlier and gone to the Meander River and fished the fast waters.
It wasn't all that long before I was slowly making my way upstream, flicking a #1 Mepps Aglia Furia spinner around. This spinner is a good all round lure and quite often catches a trout when the other models don't. After ten minutes, without a sign of a trout, I tried a March Brown coloured Mepps Bug spinner. The same result, not a sign of a trout here.
The plan from here on was to head to the fast water runs, several hundred metres further up the river, as that's where I know I'll pick up a few trout in these conditions. As I started to make my way to the river bank, I spotted quite a few trout starting to surface feed ahead of me. I decided to see if I could at least get one to take a small Mepps lure.
Looking at the water surface to see what they were feeding on, I could see they were mayflies, not midges or small spinners as I had first thought. Then I noticed swallows darting across the river and that's when I saw the masses of mayflies in the air. There was a massive hatch happening, which was something I hadn't seen on this river since 2009.
Being here to see this was certainly the highlight of the day and the trout season. There were literally millions of them in the air, not to mention the millions on the water surface that the trout were feeding on. I did try a variety of Mepps spinners on the trout, in the slower flowing water, where I did have quite a few trout follow the lure but that's as far as it went with them.
It was time to head to the fast waters, my last hope of catching a trout in the river. It wasn't until I changed to a black blade #00 Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire and started casting and drifting it with the flow that a solid rainbow trout took a liking to it. This fish fought hard and continued to try and get into the water weeds. I kept the rod tip high and full pressure on the fish, helping to tire it much quicker in the fast water. Two minutes later the trout was in the net, photographed and back in the river for another day.
From here on it was slow going, with hardly a trout to be seen. This fast water was well short of trout today, compared to what it normally was. It took some time before I hooked another rainbow trout and this one was a tiddler. It was a very small juvenile fish and something that seems to be happening to me all too often lately. A little further up I hooked and lost a small brown, before I finally picked up a medium size brown (360g) in a small pocket of water near the river bank at 11:30am.
I was going to call it a day, then decided to try one more piece of water fifty metres further upstream. This is a deep, short stretch of fast/medium flowing water that often gives up a trout or two. With this run of water being deeper, I replaced the #00 Aglia Mouche Noire with a larger Mepps Stone Fly coloured Bug spinner so it would run deep and hopefully attract the attention of a trout.
Two casts was all it took to get the attention of a nice size trout and that was it. That trout followed the spinner for a short time, before moving off. I really had no choice now but to try a small hard body lure. I went for a small, unbranded olive coloured one. A couple of minutes later, after running it deep, it was picked up by a decent size rainbow that ran hard and fast. This was certainly the fish of the day. After a decent tussle with this fish and three minutes later, I had it on the surface and in the net. This was a beautiful female rainbow that went 545g. It, like all my trout, was released back into the river.
A few cast and retrieves back into the same water and a large brown trout came out of nowhere and followed the lure for a short time, before it turned and moved back into the depths of this deep run of water. My heart was in my mouth when this fish came up behind the lure because this was a monster brown for this river. It was a fish that was in the 5 to 6 pound range. In one way I was rather glad it didn't take the small hard body, while at the same time I was a little disappointed it didn't take it. I would have loved to have had a battle with that trout, however had it broken off, I would be concerned about the damage that may have occurred from the lure. Anyway, in the end I didn't have to worry about it.
After that I called it a day. It was 12:20pm and with just three rainbows and one brown trout caught, it wasn't worth pushing on. Especially not with the sun full on the water now and I was also in for a long walk back to the car. Had I gone and fished the fast waters of the Meander River, I know I would have caught more trout. Then, had I done that, I would have missed out on seeing the massive mayfly hatch on the Mersey River.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment used on various trout trips:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg trout rods
Okuma LRF Spin Rods - Split Grip 1-3kg
Okuma Inspira Blue Spin Reels - ISX-20B
Okuma Helios SX Spin Reels - HSX-20
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reels - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar Spin Reels - C-10
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament Fishing Line
Platypus Pre-Test Monofilament Fishing Line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Boomerang Tool Products