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Mepps Wild Browns

By Adrian (meppstas) Webb

I had to get one more spin session in the tannin waters before the rain arrived tonight and the rivers would be running high again. I checked the larger rivers early on and they were still running too high for wading, so my only choice was the tannin waters. Not that it matters as I love fishing the small streams anyway.

Today I hit the river at 10:15am in what were very dull, overcast conditions, with a very light north easterly breeze. The stream was still running at a nice height. With a low pressure system moving in I was hoping it wouldn't impact the trout fishing... although I was pretty sure it would make for a tough spin session.

In the first foliage covered stretch of water I flicked a Mepps #00 March Brown spinner, resulting in a follow from a small/medium size, non-aggressive brown trout. Ten minutes spent in more open water, while working the spinner close to the right hand side of the stream, and a brown darted out from under the river bank to take hold of the March Brown spinner. It made a couple of runs up and across the stream, then tossed the spinner on its first leap from the water.

It was slow going after that, with hardly a sign of a trout. There were also quite a few log jams here since my last trip a few weeks ago. After making my way over a small log jam, I reached a short waist deep stretch of water. This was one that's given up a trout or two on my previous trips here. It had a nice bubble line midwater, which was good, and two medium size trout in two cast and retrieves was the end result in this piece of water. This was more to my liking.

From then on it was pretty slow going. Not that the trout weren't out and about, they just weren't staying hooked. I had four or five takes on the March Brown, all of which I lost. I tried a few other Mepps spinners, such as the #0 Aglia Micropigment (Brown), #00 Gold Aglia Mouche Noire and # 00 Copper Aglia, with plenty of hits on them but no hook ups.

It was 11:15am when I finally caught the third trout of the morning and that was only a small trout that fell to the Mepps March Brown Bug spinner that I went back to. Then it went dead again, so it was on with the ever-reliable little #00 Gold Aglia in the hope it would turn things around... it didn't, though I did have one solid fish take it, that I lost soon after it was hooked.

A little further up the stream I had a few more hit and misses on it, before going to a #00 Copper Aglia. It was a session that looked like becoming a 'what could have been day' at this stage. One of many that I'd had throughout the trout season. Ten minutes later I caught the fish of the day (not really) on the copper spinner. This fish darted in front of a medium size trout and took the lure.

I couldn't believe what I had just seen. This had to be the smallest trout this season. A few days ago I thought I had caught my smallest trout... well now I was sure I had caught it today. After its release I lost a couple more trout, so I went back to the March Brown spinner. This time I went up one size #0 (2.5g), mainly because I thought the larger trebles would hold the trout a little better than the small trebles on the #00 spinners.

The first cast with the larger spinner was into the headwater and as soon as it hit the water it was taken by a nice trout. I hadn't even turned the reel handle when that happened, so I couldn't set the hooks and the trout tossed the lure. A little further upstream the water parted ways, where a log lay in the middle of it, and I chose the deeper, left hand side of the log to fish. Only a short cast was required to lob the March Brown Bug at the top end, next to the log and on the retrieve the lure was picked off by a good size trout that ran straight down past me. I had a good tussle with this fish as it played up in the fast water, making several leaps from the river before it grew tired and I had it in the net. Finally, after losing three trout in a row, I had my fifth trout in the net.

The water ahead of me looked good. It had a knee deep run, along a heavy foliage lined bank and it also had a nice bubble line running along it too. Surely there would be a trout holding out near the river bank. I decided to make a long cast to the right hand side, top end, of this run and then retrieve the spinner back along the bubble line. The cast was good, right where I wanted it and halfway through the retrieve it was fish on... for a short time. The fish tossed the spinner on the first head shake. I mumbled a few words to myself before changing lures again and moved on upstream, just as the north easterly picked up at 11:55am.

The lure that I went for this time was a #00 Aglia Mouche Noire, as I just thought I had to give it another go at catching a trout. I hardly saw a trout over the next thirty minutes, with just two follows from medium size browns. It wasn't until I reached a long, shallow, slow flowing run when a small brown took a liking to the Gold Mouche Noire. Trout number six was caught and released.

Five minutes later, as I reached the top end of this shallow run, I hooked and landed the seventh trout, another small brown. I was about to call it a day when I noticed the wind had dropped off, so I fished on. I was moving into a deeper stretch of water at this point, so I went back to a #00 March Brown Bug spinner and had a couple of follows in no time at all. Three more trout was what I wanted, to reach double figures and that was enough to keep me in the river a little longer.

At 12.35pm I caught number eight, a nice medium size fish and five minutes after its release I picked up the ninth fish of the day. The ninth trout was the best fish of the day, a well-conditioned 415 gram brown. I spent another ten minutes trying to catch the tenth trout and I went close to it, however the trout's aggression had gone again as the north easterly wind returned.

My day in the stream was done. With just half the fish caught from the hook ups today it was pretty disappointing in a way, however in saying that I suppose it could have been worse. Not long after I arrived home the rain started and we had 47mm. This would be enough to get the small streams running high again. I will return to them again in a few days, once they've settled down to a nice wading height again.

Adrian (meppstas)

Equipment Used During the Season:

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