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Mepps Bug Fires up the Trout
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Today's spin session was back in the Meander River and this time I had good friend Lee from my old home state of South Australia with me. Lee and his wife have been travelling around the state enjoying the good life, as well as the beautiful scenery of Tasmania. He's also wet a line from time to time and caught a few trout. This was Lee's first trip to the Meander River, for a solid and what turned out to be a very long and rewarding spin session by the end of it.
We hit the water around 7:25am, in what was pretty cool conditions. The sky was clear, and the air temperature was a cold 3.5 degrees. The river was running at 73cm, which was a little on the high side but still safe for wading, providing care was taken in several stretches of water, in different areas on the river. The rest of the river was fine.
The first long stretch of water was probably the deepest and toughest one to fish and the trout were pretty scarce in it, with just a couple of small to medium size browns being caught and released. The further we fished our way up the river, the better the fishing became and it was the Mepps #1 March Brown coloured Bug spinner that was doing the job for me and the #0 March Brown Bug that was working for Lee.
The trout themselves were mainly all medium size, well-conditioned fish, with just the odd little one being caught. Even with full sun on the water, the trout were still taking the March Brown Bug, though there were several times that I really had to work the spinner to get the odd larger trout to take hold of it.
One of the trout, that turned out to be my best fish of the day, followed the March Brown Bug from the opposite side of the river. As I let the lure drift with the flow it sat right up behind it. As the lure got closer to me, I could see the white inside the trout’s mouth as it opened and closed it, taking several soft nips at the tail end of the lure. There wasn't much that I could do about it until the trout was within three metres of me. The lure and the trout were both parallel to the river bank and in water that was only 30cm deep.
So, what I did was draw the March Brown Bug towards me, which got the trout to come at the lure, then I let the lure drift back toward the trout and just as it got close to the trout's head I moved the lure forward, away from it again. I repeated this three or four times and in the end that was enough to turn the trout aggressive and it took the spinner. Then it was fish on!
That fish was much larger than I thought it was and I only realised that when it made its first leap from the river. I saw the size of the fish and it took a couple of minutes of playing it out in the fast-flowing river, before I had the trout close enough to slip the net under it. Like I do when I weigh fish, I weighed it while it was still in the net, then deducted the 310g net weight from the total weight and the trout weighed 1.8kg. It was in top condition too, like most of the trout we had caught so far, they had all been in top condition.
Lee had stuck to his guns and continued to work the lure as hard as ever and he managed to catch a few nice medium size browns. By the time we got to the end of this very long stretch of river I had caught thirteen trout, with three of them being over the one kilo mark. Lee had caught five nice browns as well and the best was yet to come for him. He also kept three medium size (350g) browns for the smoker, which was fine by me. He was here in Tasmania to enjoy himself and there's no problem with keeping a few medium size fish. Back in my early years of fishing the rivers here I always kept a few for the smoker.
It was 11:30pm when I said it's time to head back to the car. On the walk back I asked Lee if he was tired and ready to head for home or would he like to continue for a little longer in another stretch of water. He was quite happy to continue fishing and with the weather being so good, we decided to fish on.
After a three kilometre drive, we arrived at our next long stretch of river, one that had a much better river bottom, that was a lot better on the body. We both stuck with the Mepps March Brown Bug spinner here and it didn't let us down either. It didn't take all that long before I caught and released the first in this next stretch of water. I went on to catch another seven trout, taking my tally to twenty for the day, before we called it. Lee had a great time in this stretch of water too, managing to catch and release four nice browns, with two of them being his PB trout. The best trout went 1.5 kg and all the trout caught in the second area we fished were released.
Overall, it was a top day in the river, with some beautiful brown trout being caught and released. These were some of the best trout I've caught here for quite some time. I was really stoked to see Lee get onto a few trout too and even better seeing him catch and release two beautiful wild brown trout, something he will remember for years to come.
I thought I had caught nineteen trout at the end of the spin session, then after going through my video footage I found that I had called trout number sixteen twice in a row. Anyway, I found it and that's how my day ended with twenty trout all up. One other thing I just need to add to this report is Lee... he couldn't help himself and he took another dive in the river. This time his dive wasn't as bad as the one he took when we fished the Mersey River back on the October 11 when he took the plunge. Sorry Lee, I just had to add this to the report.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono
Platypus Super 100 Mono
Platypus Pre-Test Mono
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners -
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner