Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » New Found Tannin Fires
New Found Tannin Fires
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
After having around 5-6mm of rain and with the morning being quite humid, I thought a trip to tannin waters would be well worth it. I was just about to leave when the rain arrived again, so I had to sit around for an hour before heading off. This trip involved a long walk and plenty of bush bashing to reach a new tannin water, one that I came across while looking around on Google Earth.
With nineteen trout still needed to be caught, for me to reach a milestone of 10,000 Tasmanian wild trout, I thought the change to a new water may help bring it that much closer and maybe a little quicker. It was 9:15am when I started the walk and just on 9:55am when I finally reached the water. It then took me another ten minutes to catch my breath because the bush was much thicker and tougher than I had expected.
I was quite happy to see that there was a reasonable flow in the stream. Better still, I noticed a small circle appear on a short flat water, which meant there were fish in this stream. Seeing that may have made the bush bashing worth it. I'd have been quite satisfied if I could catch and release a minimum of half a dozen trout this trip and any over that would be a real bonus.
I started the session off with a gold #00 Aglia Mouche Noire and it wasn't all that long before I had a hit and miss from a small brown. Two casts later and the same thing, still no hook up.
I needed a lure that was going to turn them on, so I went for the March Brown colour in the Mepps Bug spinner, seeing as it's done well in tannin waters before. A few casts into a medium deep stretch of water resulted in a couple of solid hit and misses, before I picked up a very small brown in a short shallow piece fast water. I reckon that little brown was close to being the smallest one that I've caught so far this season.
Ten minutes on and I had several more hit and misses, plus a couple of hook ups, all of which were lost. The trout were certainly here in good numbers and very aggressive, however for some reason they were not getting hooked. They were actually darting out and hitting the spinner hard and fast, side on in the shallow water and that's why I felt they were not being hooked. I'm the water being shallow and a light tannin colour had a lot to do with it too.
Another change of lure was in order and this time it was to a black #00 Aglia Mouche Noire, another spinner that's always done well on the trout in most waters. It took a while and after having several more hit and misses, I caught my second trout of the morning, a nice well-conditioned medium size brown.
After having a few more hit and misses I had one take the spinner full on and trout number three was soon in hand. A little further up the stream I had my forth trout landed. Two trout taken in five minutes was more to my liking.
After having way too many hit and misses, it took just under fifty minutes before I had another small trout hooked and in hand, just as light rain arrived. After having a couple more hooked and lost fish it was time for another lure change. This time I went for the #00 Stone Fly coloured Bug spinner. Another lure that always performs well on the trout.
The half a dozen trout that I was hoping for was looking good and with any luck I could add a few more above that... if I could just get them to stay on. The aggression was there, it was just the way that they were taking the spinner that was the problem. Another thing that I did was to take off my anti-kink set up, mainly due to the water being so low and the extra weight (not that it was all that much at 2 grams if that) keeping the spinner too close to the bottom. I knew that this would create line twist as the spin session went on, however I was willing to put up with that if it produced a few trout. Not only that, it would also stop the lure from fouling up each time that it touched the rocky, algae covered bottom.
It certainly made a difference because it wasn't all that long before I was onto a trout in a shallow stretch of water. Trout number seven was caught. From then on the fishing did improve and the spinner wasn't being fouled with green algae, however the line twist soon appeared. The line twist wasn't bad enough to make me go back to using the anti-kink at this stage and with the rain getting a little heavier I doubted that I'd be fishing on much longer.
I had now set myself a target of a dozen trout before calling it a day, something I should have already reached had I not hooked and lost so many trout during the session. It wasn't long before eleven trout had been caught and released and with one trout to go to reach my target I hooked number twelve.
This was a beautiful solid brown too, which I had on for a while before losing it while trying to get my camera out to film it. Had I just slipped the landing net under it instead of worrying about getting it on video, I would have had it. The rain was now the heaviest it had been. I was not giving the fishing away until I had the twelfth trout caught and released. I was as wet as a shag, so it didn't really matter now any way.
Thankfully it only took another ten minutes to catch the twelfth trout of the spin session and my day was done and dusted at 1:30pm. Tomorrow I would be heading back to the tannin waters, full of confidence in catching the seven trout required to reach the unplanned milestone. Today's rain would give the streams/rivers a lift that would bring on the trout more than it had today. With twelve trout caught from twenty hook ups... not to mention the amount of hit and misses I had today, tomorrow would be better.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - 6' ULS 1-3kg trout rod
Okuma Helios Spin Reels - ISX-20 spinning reel
Mepps Lures Inline Spinners
Platypus Super 100 monofilament fishing line