Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Tannin Water Trout - Aglia Gold

Tannin Water Trout - Aglia Gold

Windy and cool conditions over the past week and a half had really started to tick me off because it had kept me from fishing this stream since the February 3. The only good thing to come out of this cooler weather was the fact that we had around 40mm of rain during that time.

Today I decided that enough was enough, so I grabbed the Okuma 6' LRF trout rod and Okuma Ceymar C-10 reel and headed off for a spin session in a little tannin stream.

The wind was still blowing at 25-30kph, however where I was heading to I knew that I had a good amount of shelter from it. Once there I could see there was enough water flowing in it and the dark tannin colour made the choice of lure easy, it was gold, Mepps Aglia Gold that is.

I don't normally fish any small streams during the dry months, due to the water levels being so low and warm. Not only that, the trout that are there are easily spooked, plus they're already stressed enough from the low, warm water levels and catching them only stresses them out all the more.

I hit the river just on 3:15pm and started working a narrow fast water, without a touch, then moved into the next little fast water run just as it started to rain. It was there that I picked up my first little wild brown and two casts later in the same stretch of water I had my second little brown in hand. Even though they're small trout, they still fight like hell and are fun to catch on very light tackle.

As I moved into the next run the rain had stopped, however the wind was still blowing hard. Thankfully the tea trees were a good wind break. In the following stretch of water I had a hit and miss before hooking a very small brown, which I lost.

From then on it was a little quiet and all I managed was the odd hit and miss, plus a few follows. The trout were certainly small, but they were here and that's a good thing. It took an hour after catching the first two trout before I picked up trout number three, then lost the next two fish before catching one more brown, about thirty minutes later.

At one stage I did think about trying a different Mepps spinner but decided against it. The Gold Aglia was still attracting the trout, so why change it. I had two more stretches of river to fish before I was calling it a day and it was the second stretch of water that gave up two more small trout.

My day was done, I caught my last trout at 5:10pm and there was more rain on the way. It was time to get out of there. I was reasonably happy with how the spin session went as I wasn't really expecting all that much today. Half a dozen trout from ten hook ups was fair enough, for the time spent in this small tannin stream.

I still remember coming across dozens of dead trout in this river back in 2011/12, when we had a very dry Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Before that dry spell the trout were plentiful and catching 400 to 500 gram browns was quite common and in good numbers too. It's only the past two years that this little stream has started to give up trout again... a good sign indeed.

Adrian (meppstas)