Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Meander River & Western Creek
Meander River & Western Creek
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Another mild overcast day had me heading off to the Meander River chasing trout and if they weren't there, then I'd shoot on over to Western Creek and give that a go on the way home. It wasn't an early start this morning by any means. By the time I arrived and had a 1.5 kilometre walk to the river it was just on 8:35am.
As I approached the river I could see it was running nice and clear, however the river bottom wasn't looking good for spin fishing, it was covered in green algae. The fishing was pretty slow going, with no signs of a trout and with the little Mepps Gold Black Fury continually becoming fouled with the algae... it wasn't looking good.
It took just on thirty minutes before I caught my first trout of the morning, a medium size brown that I lured away from a flat water near the opposite river bank. It's always a relief catching a trout when there hasn't been any signs of them for a while and it makes one wonder why they're not here like they once were. They used to be in good numbers here and the area that I was fishing is one where I averaged a dozen trout per trip. Now I was battling to catch three on most trips.
It wasn't until I was close to the area where I had to get out and bypass a long deep stretch of river, that I caught my second medium size trout in the last of the fast waters.
Once I had bypassed the long, deep stretch of river and hopped back into the shallow, medium flowing water, the fishing didn't get any better. In fact it was worse, with just the one trout seen. I fished on for around five hundred metres of river... for a big fat zero.
I'd had enough of wasting my time here, the move was on and it was back to the car and off to Western Creek. On the way to the creek I was hoping there would still be enough water flowing in it because it does drop to a very low level due to lack of rain. It was at a good height the last time I fished it nine days ago, however we'd had a little rain since then.
When I arrived at the creek I found it was a little on the low side but still enough water flowing to be holding a few trout in some of the deeper runs. I started off using a #0 Aglia Fluo Micropigments spinner in Brown/Gold colour here, mainly because the water was slightly cloudy and the Aglia has a wider blade than the Black Fury, so there'll be more vibration from the spinner blade as it rotates through the water. That vibration will be picked up by the trout as the lure is retrieved through the water.
It wasn't very long before I had a medium size brown take the spinner and the trout put up a good tussle too. After the release of that trout I had a few follows but no takers... the trout were here, just not aggressive. It was off with the Aglia spinner and on with a small floating lure that worked on the trout on the last trip here.
I picked up another three nice browns on it, all of which were in and around the 300 gram range. After that I had a couple more follows, before calling it a day. My lower back and hips were getting too sore to push on any further. With just the six trout taken all up for the day it wasn't what I'd call a great spin session, however it was still good that I had managed to catch what I did.
Adrian (meppstas)