Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Skinny Water Browns 5-9-18
Skinny Water Browns 5-9-18
More rain forecast again later in the day saw me head off to fish the tannin water again today in what was a much milder day than what we've previously been having.
The reason I decided to fish the small stream was because the larger rivers are still running very cold and high, while this little stream would be a little warmer than them.
I arrived to see the level was lower than my last trip here, back on 22nd August, when it was cold and running at a medium height. I had a one and a half kilometre walk to where I started off the spin session and the lure of choice was a Mepps #0 Aglia tiger fluoro blade spinner.
This spinner worked well on my first trip here earlier in the trout season and I was confident it would do the job again today, providing the trout were out and about. I really love fishing these little tannin streams because they often hold plenty of trout. Not large fish but well-conditioned little battlers.
I do catch quite a few larger fish up to 700 grams in them from time to time, however the majority of them average around 280-320 grams. They are great fun on light tackle and also it's a challenge stalking them in tight shallow runs.
There's never any margin for error when fishing here either and one has to make every cast count. There's also no room for the cast and drift method that I use in the larger rivers because of the narrowness of these streams. Anyway let's get back to the trout fishing and how the day went.
The first stretch of water I fished gave up two small brown trout?in quick time, which was just the start I was hoping for. After that I had a couple of hits from small trout but missed hooking them, so I changed over to a small #00 copper Black Fury in a fluoro chartreuse colour. I thought the smaller lure may have more of a chance of hooking a few of these small browns, however it never drew the attention of a single trout.
It was back on with the tiger fluoro and three casts later I had another brown trout in the net. This just showed me that the fluoro spinner is the one to stay with, unless they decided to go off it later on.
Quite a few stretches of this stream didn't hold any trout, while others gave up one or two trout every now and then. After two hours of fishing my way back to the car I had caught and released a total of ten nice stream browns, with the best one going 360 grams. So overall it was a fairly good session and one that's been long overdue.
Adrian (Meppstas) Webb