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Meander River - Had Better Days
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Overcast, humid conditions and the perfect water level was enough for me to head over to the Meander River for a spin session. It was 6:45am when I hit the water and it wasn't all that long before I had the first trout of the morning take a #0 Mepps March Brown coloured Bug spinner. The only problem was that it tossed it as fast as it took it.
Two casts later I was onto another trout and this little brown stayed on and I had the first fish of the day in the net. It had been around a month since I last fished this stretch of river and the stretch of water that I was fishing didn't give up a single fish. This was a good start compared to what I normally have here.
The river here was perfect for casting and drifting too, which was even better as it's one of my favourite ways to spin fish. There's nothing better than watching the Mepps inline spinner drift with the flow and a trout sitting right up behind it. Then it's up to me to get that trout to take the spinner. Most times all it takes to get the trout to take the spinner is to give the Okuma Celilo Finesse ULS trout rod a light twitch or two and nine times out of ten it's fish on.
Five minutes after the release of that trout, and several metres further upstream, I picked up another small brown trout. Three minutes after that I had my third trout in the net. This was the best start I've had in this stretch of water all season and I was hoping it would continue too. As I was nearing the top end of this wide and medium flowing stretch of water I hooked and lost another trout. A few minutes after that, I caught and released the fourth brown trout of the session. Four trout caught and released from six hook ups in thirty-five minutes was as good as it gets.
The next water that I moved into was similar to the one that I had just fished. It was a wide and medium flowing one, with the only difference being that it was much shallower. The opposite side, near the riverbank, was a little deeper and that's where I concentrated most of my fishing with the Mepps March Brown coloured Bug spinner. The left-hand side of the river was the better side to fish as well because the cloud cover was starting to disperse, with the sun now hitting the water surface. It was deeper and shaded from the heavy foliage along it.
The first thing that I noticed was that there were quite a few small flat waters close to the riverbank, which were perfect for holding trout. Those areas are where I concentrated my fishing with the spinner. It was on the third cast, into a wide flat water at the tail end of this water, that I hooked onto a solid brown. Five seconds was all that it took to lose it. One leap from the river and it tossed the spinner.
With four trout caught and released from seven hook ups, I was starting to think it was going to be one of those days again. Not all that long after losing that trout, and a little further up the river, I continued to have several small trout look at the spinner, before moving off. There weren't any signs of aggression from them at all. I tried a couple other Mepps spinners, including the Stone Fly Bug and Aglia Mouche Noire, however those spinners didn't attract any fish, so I went back to the March Brown coloured spinner.
A little further upstream I spotted a nice narrow flat water, that had good foliage cover over it and the cast had to be accurate. I had to lob the lure into it on the first cast. If I didn't and there was a trout nearby, that fish would more than likely dart off. My cast was spot on, lobbing exactly where I wanted it to. As soon as the spinner hit the water it was taken by a very solid trout. It was fish on!
This trout was a beauty too, a very decent size brown and one that played hard to get. It took me a couple of minutes before I had it in close enough to ease it into the landing net. As soon as it was hooked, I decided not to get the camera out and film it, just in case I lost it at the last minute… like I have done so many times this season. I'm glad I didn't go for the camera either as once in the net out popped the March Brown Bug spinner. I photographed and then weighed it while it was in the net. The trout went 885g after I deducted the 310g net weight.
From here on it went a little downhill for me as the trout became few and far between. Those that did have a crack at the spinner missed being hooked. Having the sun now on the water didn't make it any better either. Finally, after one and a half hours, I caught my sixth trout. This was a solid and well-conditioned medium size brown that was soon released back into the river.
A little further upstream I picked up two more small browns, before it all went downhill again. I was having plenty of trout follow the spinner, but the sun being well overhead was enough to shut them down. I was also feeling the heat, with the temperature hitting twenty-five degrees now, which probably doesn't seem that hot to mainlanders. Twenty-five degrees here in Tassie is like thirty-two degrees in South Australia, where I originally came from twenty-two years ago.
I caught the last fish at 10:20am and was seriously thinking about calling it a day, however, as usual, I thought I still had a chance of catching a few more trout if I fished on for another ten or fifteen minutes. Big mistake that was. In fact, I fished on for another forty minutes and had several hook ups without landing a fish! At 10:55am I spat the dummy and called it a day. My day was done and with just eight trout caught and released it was pretty disappointing. I know most trout fishers would be quite happy to catch eight trout anytime they went fishing, however I'm not like that. For the amount of time that I spend in the rivers a dozen trout is the minimum number that satisfies me.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used During My Trout Season:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg
Okuma LRF Spin Rods – 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels – ITX-1000
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 Pulse Mono Premium Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Pre-test Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner
Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire