Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Putting in the Hours
Putting in the Hours
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
I thought it was time for a trip to the Meander River today, seeing as it's been quite some time since my last visit there, which was last season. The weather conditions were just beautiful, with clear skies, no wind and a temperature of around 15 degrees. It couldn't have been a nicer day.
It was just on 9.55am when I arrived and by the time I got my wading gear on and headed off on the 2km walk to the river it was 10:30 by the time I hopped in the clear, fast flowing water. It was running much higher than I preferred and I still thought the trip here may have been a time waster.
Going through my diary before I left home, to see how it fished the same time over the past couple of seasons and it wasn't looking all the promising. On those trips hardly a fish was seen, let alone being caught and as it turned out today wasn't any different either.
The river bottom wasn't all that good, being covered with a brown slimy algae and a good mix of green cotton like algae in with it. After fishing my way upstream, fishing every flat water I came across, not a sign of a trout was had. There just wasn't any trout here at all.
I fished well over a kilometre of river, using the cast and drift method where possible, using a variety of lures without a single follow or sighting a trout. My day was done here. At one stage I did think about heading further up the river and fishing the full on fast water runs, however I then thought that with it running hard and fast it wouldn't be safe enough for wading yet.
The one good thing that went well today was that my new Okuma Inspira ISX 20B spinning reel, filled with Platypus Super 100 clear 4lb mono line, was used for the first time and I had set it up on an Okuma Celilo Finesse 6'6'' ULS 1-3kg trout rod. It worked to perfection and it's a beautifully balanced set up for trout fishing the rivers here in Tasmania or any river around the country.
After a twenty minute walk back to the car I headed over to Western Creek, which is always my stopover fishing spot when the Meander isn't giving up a fish. Once there I saw it was running low and a reasonably clouded colour. This wasn't what I was expecting to see at all. I did have a walk along it to see if it was worth hopping in for a spin session, however I then thought twice about it and headed back to the car.
From there I went and had some lunch, then after that I just drove around checking out a few other small streams and creeks to see what they were like. I did find one that is probably worth a fish one day, when I get in contact with the land owner and hopefully gain permission to enter the property.
Before I knew it the time was 2:30pm, so I decided to pop into a small tannin water on the way home and put in a couple of hours fishing there. I wasn't going to fish a very long stretch of it, due to my body starting to feel the effects of the Meander River fish-less stint.
Once there (3:20pm), I could see it was still flowing nicely and even though the water level had dropped several inches, it was still at a reasonable wading depth. I started the session off with the Okuma Celilo Finesse 6' ULS 1-3 kg trout rod, Helios SX20 spin reel and Mepps #0 Aglia Fluo Micropigments Brown / Gold (brown trout pattern) spinner and if that didn't work then I'd make a change.
The first stretch of good looking trout water was bare of fish. Not a touch from a fish in what I thought looked good for at least one trout. It was the following wide, knee deep dark tannin water run that gave up the first trout (3:29pm) of the day, a nice medium size brown of around 320 grams. That fish was taken close to the right hand side of the stream, where a small channel of water flowed into it.
Finally I had my first trout of the day landed and long overdue it was too. It had taken many hours and a lot of kilometres to catch a trout today. Two casts later in the same stretch of water and I had my second brown well and truly hooked and landed. Two fish in four minutes, that's how quick it can turn around.
I spoke too soon and after that all I could manage was two hit and misses, until I picked up the third trout at 4:55pm. I was nearly back to the area where my car was when I had two more hit and misses in a wide deep pool and it was then that I called it a day at 5:05pm. It was another of those 'I've had better days' spin sessions. I suppose it could have been worse, had I not persevered like I did. So, I'm slowly making my way to the 10,000th Tasmanian wild trout... just another sixty to go.
Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 6' & 6'6''1-3kg trout rod
Okuma Helios SX Spin Reels - HSX-20
Inspira Blue Spin Reels - ISX-20B spinning reel
Mepps Inline Spinners
Platypus Super 100 mono lines
Adrian (meppstas)