Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Quite the Opposite Result 16-3-2021
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Quite the Opposite Result 16-3-2021
I checked the river height for the Meander River early this morning and found that it had dropped to 60cm, meaning the fast water was at a safe level (for me anyway) to hop in and chase a few trout.
It was 7:30am when I hopped in the river, in what was a nice mild and overcast morning. The river looked good and there were plenty of nice flat water areas on it too. When the river is running at 70cm there is hardly any flat water area to be seen. A 10cm drop in the water level certainly can make a lot of difference.
I started the morning off with a Gold #0 Mepps Black Fury inline spinner, a great all round lure to use in the fast waters at this time of the trout season. After fifteen minutes and a lot of cast and retrieves, without seeing a trout, it wasn't looking all that good. Normally I would have had a few strikes by now and had a trout or two caught and released.
When I did finally have a trout take the spinner, I lost it not all that long after hooking it. Just after that I had a couple of hit and misses. This wasn't the sort of spin session or start to it at least that I was expecting. I thought the trout would be full on, given the ideal conditions this morning. My last trip here was back on the February 4 and by this time of the morning I had already caught and released three trout.
It wasn't until 8:20am, after a cast across the river into a small flat water, that I hooked and landed the first trout of the session. This solid brown was caught on a Gold #00 Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire, one of several Mepps spinners that had a workout in the 40 minutes of fast water fishing so far.
A couple of cast and drifts later, with the spinner, a small brown took it but I lost it as fast as it hit the lure. I could feel it was going to be one of those days as the few hits that I had were all fast, side on hits and not all that aggressive. When they're like this, I always seem to have more lost fish than caught and released ones.
This long, fast water run had also had a lot of attention over the past few weeks, with stage six of the Australian Fly Fishing Championships taking place here, along with a long weekend. Plus, there's always several fishos here throughout the week days. After the loss of that little trout I made a few lure changes in the hope a trout may stay hooked if and when it took it. All I managed was a couple more soft hits and misses.
I thought I would give one of my very, very old Mepps spinners a go. This was one that I hand painted many years ago and the blade is light brown, with a few yellow dots on the front of the blade. It is a similar colour to the grasshoppers that are still out and about and it did catch a trout the last time I used it. It took a while but it did finish up catching a small/medium size brown (at 8:55am) after a direct cast straight up the river and into a small flat water near the right hand side of the river.
I was seriously thinking about getting out and trying another area a few kilometres downstream, then I decided to push on for a little longer in the hope that the fishing would turn around for the better. It didn't and after having a couple more hit and misses, along with two hook ups, I did finish up catching one more trout on a #00 Gold Mepps Aglia spinner. After the release of that trout I gave it another twenty minutes, without a trout being caught. It was time to head elsewhere.
Once back at the car I headed off to a nice wide stretch of river that had a mix of medium and fast flowing water on it. It was a stretch of river that I hadn't fished this season, but one that always gave up a few trout when I did fish it. By the time I drove there and walked to the river it was 10:15am and still overcast, however not as heavy as it was earlier this morning.
After making my way through some deep, above the waist, slow flowing water, to a more reasonable lower depth of the river where I felt more comfortable, I started fishing again. The water temperature felt a lot colder on the legs here, more likely because of it being deeper than the fast water runs. I started off using a #00 Mepps Stone Fly coloured Bug spinner, mainly because of the patches of sunlight that were now filtering through the clouds. Also, with the water being clear and slow/medium flowing, it was the only one that I thought would do the job on the trout. It wasn't until I had reached the headwaters of the long, wide stretch of water that I hooked and lost a solid trout. A couple of casts later, in the same water, I caught a small brown trout.
When I say a small brown trout, it was as small as a few others I've caught in this river over the past few trips. The only good thing about catching these little trout is that there have been some good spawning seasons in the past couple of years. From here on it got worse. I kept hooking and losing the larger trout as fast as they hit the spinner. Five hooked trout in a row were lost, before I caught another midget of a trout in a fast water run.
As I made my way upstream, I was still hooking and losing the larger trout as well as having quite a few trout follow the spinners. The only trout that stayed on were a couple more of those small trout. The cloud had broken up and the sun was fully on the crystal clear water, which wasn't helping. The trout were nowhere to be seen. I was over it. I called it a day at 12:05pm.
When I left home to head over here I was feeling so confident of having a great session on the trout. As the day went on I knew that I was in for a big letdown... and how right I was. Why the trout were like they were today I have no idea and I guess I'll never know. It was just one of those days I suppose. Seventeen hook ups, with just seven trout landed today was quite the opposite result from my last trip to the Meander River that's for sure, especially when the conditions were near identical. The best trout caught today was the first one, weighing 355 grams. Like all of the trout that I catch, unless they have gill damage, they are always released.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used Today:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rod - ULS 1-3kg 6'6''
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reel - EPXT20
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament Line - 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire Inline Spinner
Mepps Black Fury Inline Spinner
Mepps Aglia Inline Spinner
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner
Adrian (meppstas)