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Ten is a Good Number

By Adrian (meppstas) Webb

After yesterday's late session in the Mersey River that was slow to start, today I headed over to the Meander River to fish a nice stretch of water that fishes well at this time of year. With the water level at a nice wading height, I was confident of having a good spin session. It was around 10:30am when I arrived at my destination and the conditions were perfect, overcast and mild weather (19 degress), with the river sitting on 70cm, which was okay too.

I was in the river by 10:40am and started the spin session off with a Mepps #0 March Brown coloured Bug spinner. This is one of my favourites to use at this time of the trout season. The signs were good to start with too, when a nice solid brown followed the spinner as I retrieved it. That's as far as it went though as it didn't take the lure. After that I had several small/medium size trout take the Bug spinner, with each and every one of them tossing it as soon as they leapt from the river.

The trout were here, it was just a matter of getting them to stay on the spinner when they took it. Finally, half an hour after I entered the river, it was trout on. Nothing big, just a small, aggressive, legal-size brown. The first trout was hooked and landed. A little further up the river I had another trout take on the March Brown, however I lost that fish as fast as it took it. As I moved into a fast water run, I decided to try a White Miller Bug spinner. Sometimes, a change of lure can turn everything around. The first cast and drift into this fast water attracted the attention of one very nice trout, that was in the 1.5kg-2kg range. That fish came up behind the spinner, swaying from left to right and just when I thought this fish was going to strike, it turned and darted off.

My next cast was into a very small flat water, next to the opposite side of the river, and no sooner had the spinner hit the water, it was taken by a trout. This fish was a nice size and solid fish as well. It peeled off several metres of line, while trying to break free. It didn't get away though and after a good tussle I had it in the net. Once in the net, out popped the Bug spinner. Lady luck was on my side with landing this fish, that's for sure. After a couple of photos, then weighing the fish (535g) while it was in the net, it was straight back in the river for another day. From here I had to get out the river and bypass a deep and fast flowing stretch of water, before hopping back into the river where it was much safer to wade. The river from here on was a mix of medium to fast flowing water and it was a lot better for wading because it has a nice gravelly type of river bottom.

The right-hand side of the river here was the deeper side and that side also had a lot of flatwater areas along it, that would more likely be holding trout. The only problem was that the first couple of trout that were there didn't want anything to do with the White Miller Bug. All they did was follow it for a short distance, before moving off. I wasn't going to persevere with the White Miller, so it was back to the March Brown colour again.

The change back to the March Brown coloured Mepps Bug was a good one and from here on the trout were right into it. Four small browns were caught and released in ten minutes. After that I had a few hits and misses, before picking up a few more small/medium size trout. While fishing and drifting the Bug with the flow, a large brown moved out from a deep pocket of water near the opposite side of the river. It did the same thing as that other large brown earlier on, before moving off, not to be seen again. The only difference was that this trout was much bigger. It would have been close to 2.5kg and I reckon it was a resident fish too. It will be interesting to see if it's still there on a return trip.

It was now 12:50pm and I was ready to call it a day, however, seeing I was sitting on nine trout for the spin session, I decided to stick it out and see if I could reach double figures. So far this season I have only reached it once, which has been pretty disappointing so far. Not that I haven't had the chance to do so… had I landed every trout that I had hooked, with those fish lost on several river trips, I would have reached it four times by now. That's the way it goes when fishing the rivers.

I had only moved a few metres upstream, into a wide and fast flowing stretch of water, when I caught and landed trout number ten. An aggressive, small brown was the tenth fish, and my day was done here. Once back at the car I decided to check out another stretch of water, however, once I was in it, I could see that I was wasting my time. The river bottom was slippery, the water wasn't all that clear and it had a smell to it that I didn't like. Now my day was well and truly done. Ten trout caught and released for the time spent in the river was a good result, hopefully there'll be a few more to follow.

Adrian (meppstas)