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Spring Trout on Mepps Lures
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Today I headed back to the tannin waters in what was reasonably good weather conditions. Even though it was a little on the cool side, there wasn't a breath of wind. It was a morning start this time and I was in the water by 9:30am. This time of the year there's no need to be in the water all that early. Why, you may ask, well because it's still dark here at 6:00am... and it's also freezing cold! I'm not into being in the water that early in those conditions, unlike what I used to do many years ago.
I started the spin session off with the same trout gear that I ended yesterday's fishing trip using, the lure being the Mepps #00 Aglia Mouche Noire inline spinner. Well, I could not have asked for a better start either because I had the first trout in the net by 9:37am, followed quickly by the second trout, caught and released four minutes later.
The water itself was running at the perfect knee-deep wading height in this stretch. I knew it would be the same for most of the stream that I was fishing this morning because I know this stream like the back of my hand. There are a couple of waist-deep runs here, however they're not a problem if you take it slow and easy in them.
A little further up the stream and five minutes on, I picked up my third trout. This one was a nice medium size fish, that was lured from a flat water on the righthand side of the stream. With three trout caught and released in the first fifteen minutes I was starting to think double figures and why not. With three trout caught in quick time like that, I had no reason to think any differently. I know it sounds good and I've thought this way many times only to have it go sour as the spin session went on.
The following stretch of water was a faster flowing run and it looked perfect for holding trout. There were two nice flat waters on each side of it... trout areas for sure! How wrong was I. After working both of those flat waters without a sign of a trout, I was disappointed. I could not believe there wasn't a trout to be had in those two beautiful flat waters. Still, I have been wrong before and probably will be again before the session was over.
It wasn't all bad, with the next narrow run having a massive eucalyptus tree laying across the stream at a 45-degree angle. I stated that it was trout water, while I took a video of it. The first cast to the top end of the water dropped a little shorter than I would have liked and as I retrieved the spinner a small trout came out of nowhere and took the lure. Well, as soon as I saw the size of it, I just cracked up laughing. It had to be the smallest brown trout I've caught so far this season. It was a tiddler. At least I got it right that time... it was trout water.
I bypassed a very shallow, wooded stretch of water before moving into a nice wide, medium, waist deep run. It was here that I caught my fifth trout of the morning. It was only a small/medium size fish that didn't take all that long to land. I was quite happy how the little gold Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire spinner was going on the trout too. As was the Okuma trout set up, which consisted of an Okuma Celilo Finesse 6' ULS 2-6lb spin rod, paired up with an ITX-1000 spinning reel and spooled with Platypus Pulse 4lb thin diameter mono line that's as tough as they come.
From there I slowly made my way upstream, where I hooked and lost a couple of trout. This was enough to make a change of lure. I was fishing a long, wide-open run of knee-deep, medium-flowing water and I felt the gold-coloured blade was suited here. Seeing as a few trout only followed it, before they turned and moved off, I was in two minds about using a Mepps Stone Fly Bug spinner or going with the March Brown coloured Bug spinner. I chose the latter.
Choosing the March Brown colour was a good decision and in no time at all I had caught and released two medium size browns in the once stretch of water, just five minutes apart. No sooner had I released the second of the two trout and the wind arrived. It was a gusty north easterly and just like yesterday the trout were nowhere to be seen from then on. I did stick it out for another thirty minutes and during that time all that happened was one trout followed the lure for a short distance, before it moved off.
It was 11:30am and my day was done and dusted. As it turned out it was a reasonably productive spin session, with seven trout landed and several others hooked and lost. With more rain forecast from tonight onwards, I'm not all that sure when I'll be back in a river. I am hoping that we don't have the 30-40mm of rain or more that's been forecast for tomorrow. If that happens, I won't be fishing for a while.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment used during my trout season:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg
Okuma LRF Rod - 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Spin Reels – ITX-1000
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reels - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar Spin Reels - C-10
Platypus Pulse Mono
Platypus Super 100 Mono
Platypus Pre-Test Mono
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Mepps Aglia Mouche Noire
Mepps Bug