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More Hits Than Hook Ups
Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Adrian shares with us a trip to the Meander River from toward the end of April, the last week of the 2021-22 Tasmanian trout season.
As the season is getting closer to closing, my body is also ready for a spell. With only six days remaining, I decided to have an early afternoon spin session in the Meander River. With it being a heavily overcast day, with very little breeze, the conditions were spot on and just how I like them when spin fishing for trout.
It was just after one thirty when I hit the river and started the session off with a #0 March Brown coloured Mepps Bug spinner and that's when I found that it may not be an ideal day in the river today. The reason I thought that was because on my first cast and retrieve the spinner became fouled with a green cotton like algae. This wasn't what I was expecting in this area at all, further downstream yes, but not this far up the river.
Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it, just continue on with the fishing, keep the rod tip higher, which will keep the spinner mid water and then hope for a trout to be in the vicinity and take the lure. That wasn’t until I reached a shallow, fast water run and made a long cast to the opposite side of the river. Keeping the rod high, as I slowly retrieved the March Brown Bug spinner, a medium size trout took the lure, and it didn't take long before I had my first fish of the afternoon in the net.
A little further upstream I hooked and lost a small/medium size brown in a fast water run. Not long after that, while fishing the same stretch of water, I had two more trout hit the lure and both missed being hooked. It wasn't until I had reached the top end of that fast water that one finally stuck, and I had the second trout of the afternoon landed. This fish was around the same size as the previous trout caught.
That was the last of the trout seen until I entered a long, wide and slow-flowing, knee-deep stretch of water. The rocky river bottom was well and truly covered with green algae. I wasn't far into fishing that long and slow flowing water, when I spotted a nice medium size brown that came up behind the March Brown spinner. Just when I thought the trout was going to take the spinner, the lure picked up some green algae. That was the last that I saw of that trout.
I kept on having trout come up behind the lure and each time the same thing happened. Only once did a trout get take the spinner and it was a very small, 15cm brown trout. The fouling up of the spinner continued to happen, as I fished my way upstream. Even the fast water runs were full of algae and the spinner was forever being fouled. It was really becoming frustrating now, so I took the chance and tried a couple of small floating hard body lures in a short, deepish stretch of medium flowing water. I was lucky enough to pick up a small 280g brown in it.
That was the last trout seen or caught until I reached another shallow, fast water run, where I picked up another small/medium size brown on the March Brown Mepps Bug spinner. With some nice, deeper, and faster flowing water ahead of me, I felt I was in with a good chance of catching a few trout from here on. It wasn't to be. That long one hundred metre stretch of water didn't give up a single fish. All I could manage in it was a couple of hits and misses and that was it.
Once I had reached the top end of it, I was back into a mix of deep and shallow fast water, and it was there that I caught and released three brown trout from four strikes. The best fish weighed in at 415g and the smallest fish, well, I didn't think I would catch a smaller trout than the one caught forty minutes earlier. This little fish was only around 13cm!
I was going to call it a day, then decided to fish for a little longer, which was a poor decision. I went on to have seven more hits and misses. That's when I spat the dummy and headed back to the car. It was one of those days when my catch could well have been in double figures, it wasn't to be though, it was a measly eight trout day over two and a half hours in the river. Still, I've had worse days in a river.
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 Mouch Noire Inline Spinner