Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Surface Feeding = Tough Bite

Surface Feeding = Tough Bite

With a poor weather forecast later on in the afternoon and with the conditions being overcast and cool this morning, I thought a trip to the upper Mersey River may be worth the trip. Halfway to where I was heading I came across some light fog, which I didn't mind as it meant there wouldn't be any sun on the water for an hour or two.

I hit the river at 7:10am and the first thing I came across was water weed and plenty of it. Not the ideal thing one wants to see when lure fishing, that's for sure, as it restricts the fishing quite a lot. I was starting the session of with the Mepps #1 March Brown coloured Bug spinner, to see if it may attract a trout or two. It had done the job in the Meander River two days ago, so why not try it here.

The water was clear and glassy, and there were plenty of trout feeding on a massive hatch of midges that covered the wide, slow flowing water ahead of me. With thousands of these small midges floating on the surface, as well as in the air, the trout were going to be hard to catch this morning.

I started off fishing a small fast water run but the #1 Bug spinner kept getting fouled by the thick water weeds. My size one spinner was too heavy for fishing here today. I had to make a change and went for a size 0 black blade Aglia Mouche Noire, which is a little lighter in weight. Even that spinner was getting fouled, so I decided to move into the shallow, wide stretch of river in the hope one of the surface feeding trout may take the spinner.

Fishing this wide, shallow water, I had more choice of where I could cast the spinner. I could pick the waters that had space between the water weeds. I found the left hand side of the river was the better side to fish as it had less weed growing in it and so that's where I concentrated my fishing.

I didn't have a choice of casting across the water and then retrieving the lure, my only option was casting the lure straight up the river and then retrieving it straight back down. It's the type of fishing that I'm not keen on as one tends to lose too many trout when fishing this way. Most trout hit the lure on the turn and are rarely well hooked.

I did have several follows on the Aglia Mouche Noire without any hits. I then tried three different coloured Black Fury spinners and a small plain Aglia spinner, all with the same result. It wasn't looking good and I was really looking at having a donut day for the second time this season.

Out of desperation I thought I would give a #0 copper blade Aglia Mouche Noire a go. Being a brand new spinner the copper blade was quite shiny, so I placed a black fury sticker on the blade. With the water being so clear I felt the black sticker would cut the reflection down a little as not to put the trout off. It worked and three casts later I had my first trout of the morning in the net, a nice 310 gram fish. A little further up I had a couple more trout dart at the spinner, only to have them miss getting hooked.

As I slowly moved up the river, I spotted a large fish surface feeding in the shallow water close to the river bank. I flicked the Aglia spinner a couple of metres past it and then retrieved it, at the same time giving the rod a light twitch to make the spinner blade flutter. No sooner had the lure reached the area where I had seen the trout and a bow wave rapidly appeared behind the lure. Fish on!

It was a decent sized brown that took the spinner hard and fast, and it darted every which way at the same time, putting in some solid head shakes. The trout did all it could to toss the spinner but couldn't and eventually tired enough for me to quickly slip the net under it, before it had the time to make another run. It was a beautiful solid male fish that went 690 grams and was in top condition. After a quick photo it was released back into the river.

That was the last trout hooked for some time, until I reached another fast water run, where I hooked and lost two very small browns. Not long after losing those two trout I caught and released a 290 gram brown in the next fast water run. After two and a half hours in the river with just the three trout being caught, it was time to call it a day.

Adrian (meppstas)

Gear List

Okuma 1-3 kg trout spinning rod
Okuma Helios SX-20 spinning reel
Mepps Aglia inline spinners
Mepps Bug inline spinners
Mepps Black Fury inline spinners