Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » The Aglia & The Bug
The Aglia & The Bug
Seeing as we had an Angling Club fishing day at Huntsman Lake at Meander, I thought I'd get a few hours of fishing the Meander River before heading to the lake. It was still dark when I arrived and headed off through the paddocks on a 1.5 km walk to where I was starting the spin session in the river.
By the time I reached the river it was light enough to hop in and start fishing, where I had a couple of follows from a solid brown at the tail end of a long slow flowing run. I tried several different lures but that fish just wasn't in an aggressive mood.
The next stretch of river gave up nothing and it wasn't until I reached a nice narrow medium/fast flowing run that I had my first take. A small (280g) brown took the Mepps Aglia Fluo Micropigments spinner in Brown/Gold (Brown Trout) colour from a cast and drift under the willows, close to the river bank. I had my first trout of the morning.
That was the last trout seen over the next four hundred metres, when I decided to walk a kilometre back to the car and try another area a few kilometres away.
When I reached the next area that I was going to fish there was light fog on the river, however it soon lifted not long after I entered the river. Conditions here were perfect. I stayed with the Aglia Brown/Gold for around ten minutes and had a couple of follows but no takers. It was time for a lure change.
I went with the Aglia Mouche Noire and the same thing happened, more follows, so another change of lure was had. This time it was the #1 (3.5g) March Brown coloured Mepps Bug spinner. I went for it because it was a similar colour to the light brown grasshoppers that were out and about this time of the year.
After a couple of casts, close to the opposite river bank, I was soon onto a brown that snapped up the spinner. Once again it was the cast and drift method, in this fast flowing stretch of river, that worked on the trout.
A little further up the river and using the same method, I was onto another brown. This one was a much better fish than the previous two caught so far. After a good tussle with the trout I had it in reach of the landing net and it was a beautiful 460 gram fish.
After releasing it I moved into a very fast flowing stretch of river, where I had one hit and miss. As I was heading into another nice medium/fast flowing stretch of river I flicked the lure into the tail end of it and close to the opposite river bank. It was here that I watched another solid brown come from nowhere.
It moved in fast and sat right up behind the March Brown spinner. I could see the white insides of its mouth that was opening and closing as it followed closely behind the lure. I raised the rod tip slightly to keep the line tight as the spinner drifted with the flow, before giving the rod a light twitch. I then watched the trout take the spinner. No sooner had it taken the Bug spinner, it took of downstream and into the shallow fast water where I had to let it do its own thing. The water it went into was so fast that I had no control over the fish and all I could do was to move carefully downstream with it.
Being so rocky and slippery one had to go easy. I wouldn't take the risk slipping over in this fast water. The fish made several leaps as I tried to keep the lightest of pressure on the fine 4lb mono line and then it happened, one solid head shake and it was gone.
That trout wasn't any bigger than the 460 gram fish, it was probably close to being the same size. In the end it was the force of the fast water that did the job and me not taking the risk of going with it as it headed downstream at a rate of knots. That solid brown came out on top this time, next time hopefully it will be me that comes out on top.
Moving back into the medium/fast flowing run, that I was about to enter a short time ago, I hooked and lost another brown. That one was just a little fish. I went for another change of spinner and the Stone Fly coloured Bug spinner went on this time.
I was about halfway into fishing this stretch of river. Another cast close to the opposite river bank and I hooked another nice brown, a medium size fish that went 330 grams. I fished on for another twenty minutes and just had a couple of follows, before it was time to get out and head over to Huntsman Lake, eight kilometres away.
I arrived there at 10:10am only to find that there wasn't any club members there at all for one reason or another. I knew I had the right date and even though I was just over an hour late, I still thought someone may have been there fishing the lake.
Adrian (meppstas)