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Meander Trout Run Hot and Cold
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Today I headed off to my favourite trout river, the Meander, a river that I really love to fish, whenever I get the chance to do so. This was only my second trip to the river, due to high and unsafe river levels, caused by poor weather and plenty of rain. This has kept me well away from the area. Today, the river level was running at a safe 77cm. Still a little high for my liking, but safe enough to wade with care.
Once there I had a twenty-minute walk to the river and took the first cast with the Mepps #1 Aglia Fluo Micropigments rainbow spinner at 8:45am. The conditions were pretty good, with clear skies and a very light easterly breeze. The river itself had good flow, the only downfall being the fact that it was very discoloured, from what I did not know. I gathered that there may be flood damage repair work going on further upstream, following the shocking weather that we had a few weeks ago.
The stretch of river that I started off in was a nice wide and medium flowing run, that had several good flatwater areas, located close to the riverbank on the opposite side. These were the areas that I concentrated on fishing. With the water level being on the high side, it made the river ideal for casting and drifting the Mepps inline spinners. It was on the third cast and drift that I had my first hook up, with a beautiful, well-conditioned brown trout being the first fish of the day to finish up in the net. Before I released it, I weighed it while it was in the net, and it weighed 525 grams after deducting the weight of the net.
Five minutes later I hooked and landed my second trout of the session. This fish was lured out of the same stretch of flat water as the first trout. A little further upstream I hooked and lost a medium size trout, before I picked up the third trout of the morning, a nice medium size brown, which was the smallest of the three fish landed so far.
After having a chat with the landowner, I continued to make my way upstream where I had a couple of soft hits, before hooking and landing another nice medium size brown. With four trout caught and released in the first thirty-five minutes, I felt I was in for a double figure day for sure.
Well, that's the worst thing I should have felt. From then on it was a real struggle with the trout, hooking and losing five in a row, before I finally caught my fifth trout of the morning. It was the smallest one caught so far too. What didn't help now was that the sun was well over head and the river was in full sun. The trout were there, and I was having quite a few trout coming up behind the spinner, however they were looking at it and then turning away, not to be seen again.
The easterly wind had also picked up, which didn't help. I made several lures changes. The Stone Fly and March Brown coloured Bug spinners were my first choice now that the conditions had changed, however I couldn't even get a trout to take any notice of them. I also gave the Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown spinner a short stint, which did attract a few trout, however not one of them showed any aggression towards it. My last resort was to try a hard body lure. I went for a small 55mm unbranded, olive-coloured hard body lure, to see if that would turn things around.
The move was a good one for a short time. I was lucky enough to pick up two medium size browns in quick time. That was where it ended though. Not another sign of a trout was had after that, so I went back to the #1 Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments rainbow inline spinner. It wasn’t until I had moved into a shallow fast water run that a small brown had a go at the spinner and that was it. It wasn't hooked and that's when I called it a day.
As I made my way back downstream, to where I could cross the river and make my way back to the car, I had a few casts and retrieves in the area where I was about to cross. That's when I caught my ninth trout of the spin session. It was another small brown trout and from there I had a twenty-minute walk back to the car. By the time I reached the car I was totally done. As it turned out, today was the hottest day we've had throughout the trout season, with a temperature of 25 degrees.
With more poor weather forecast in the coming days, all going well I am hoping to get one more spin session in tomorrow. My only disappointment from today's spin session was not reaching double figures. So close too, but that's trout fishing isn't it.
Equipment Used Today:
TT Red Belly Spin Rods – RBS702L ULS 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon – 4lb
Mepps Inline Spinners -
Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments
Mepps Bug
Adrian (meppstas)