Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » The Bug gets the Trout

The Bug gets the Trout

By Adrian (meppstas) Webb

A cool change was on its way, so I thought I had best get a spin session in before it arrived. This trip was close to home, to the Mersey River at Kimberley. It's an area that I've fished for many years, that used to be a great area until we had the 2016 record floods. That flood changed the Mersey River system and after the floods most of my favourite areas were completely washed away. The river was just wide open, with five bridges destroyed or severely damaged and most of the river foliage gone.

When everything settled down and I returned to fish the river, it was like I was fishing a new river, it had changed so much. As the years went on, a lot of foliage has regrown along the riverbanks, however most of it is the snap Willow trees. There is still quite a bit of native shrubs and trees along it, in areas that were spared due to the terrain they're in. The river itself hasn't fished anywhere near the best fishing from before the flood. The brown and rainbow trout are mainly small/medium size fish nowadays, with a few large trout thrown in from time to time.

The river, in the lower reaches, is not in the best of condition either. The river bottom there is in very poor condition, silted and full of a slimy type of algae that has affected the trout during the spawning seasons. Like many of the rivers across Tasmania it has been and still is being hit by cormorants, a bird that can eat three times its own body weight daily. So, as you can see, the fishing has been tough in the lower reaches of the Mersey River for many years now. The upper reaches are on the improve, with more trout being caught each season, however the size is still well down compared to what they once were. I still love to fish the lower reaches from time to time, mainly to see if there's any improvement in the trout numbers. Anyway, back to how the morning's spin session went.

After parking the car and having a long bush walk, I finally reached the river at 7:45am, in what was very warm and humid conditions. Toward the northwest there was quite a lot of dark clouds building up, so I had to get a move on before it arrived and brought the rain with it.

The Mepps spinner that I used first up was the #1 Aglia Furia, an inline spinner that's always produced a trout or two in the first stretch of water that I was about to fish. After working the Aglia Furia in a wide, fast-flowing stretch of water, without a hit or any signs of a trout, it was time to move on to another stretch of fast water and a change of lure. The lure that I went for was the same well-used Mepps #1 March Brown coloured Bug spinner that did the job on the trout a couple of days ago.

I headed to another spot across the river and after several minutes of casting and drifting the Bug spinner, I had a hook up. It was a medium size rainbow that had taken the spinner. It made a few hard runs, while staying deep for a short time, before it hit the surface. Once the fish surfaced, it tail danced across the water a couple of times, before it finally gave in and I eased it into the net.

Even though it was only a medium size rainbow, it was a nice, well-conditioned fish and a good one to catch first up. The next stretch of water was much like a pool, that was kept topped up by the main stream. It's a water that has given up two or three small trout each time that I've fished it. Today, it didn't. There wasn't a sign of a trout in it today.

I crossed back over the river and made my way up and into a fast water run. On the opposite side of it, next to the riverbank, was a nice flat water. On the first cast and retrieve I felt a light bump on the spinner. On the next cast and retrieve the spinner was hit hard and fast, as a trout had taken the Bug. Like most trout here it was just a small brown of legal size (22cm), which to me is still just a small fish, with the size limit is too small. I believe the size limit for trout in rivers and streams across Tasmania should be raised to a legal size of 30 centimetres. That was the one and only trout caught in that fast-flowing stretch of water and from there I moved into a one hundred metre, waist deep stretch of slow flowing water.

Once I started fishing this section, I decided to try a small unbranded olive coloured minnow lure. It's one I've had for several years now, that I use every so often when I fish a deeper stretch of water. After several minutes of casting it, while slowly making my way upstream, a solid brown took it.

This was a good size fish too. At first, I thought it was a rainbow trout when it stayed deep and pulled hard. It wasn't until it broke the surface and leaped from the river that I could see it was a brown trout. It pulled hard and gave up a good battle in the waist deep water. It wasn't all that long before I had it within reach of the net and once in the net out popped the lure. This was a nice well-conditioned trout, that weighed 430 grams. After a couple of photos, it was released back into the river for another day.

From here I moved into another fast water, that was really running much faster than the other one I had fished early on. It was here that I caught two small browns in two casts, then three casts and retrieves later, I caught and released a beautifully coloured 435g rainbow trout.

After its release, I looked at the time and it was 9:35am. I was thinking about walking to another good run of fast water further upstream, then decided not to head there. It was a good twenty-minute walk and I had to do a bit of bush bashing and walking through grass above waist high. With it being hot and humid I decided not to push my luck today. I will make that trip another day. One day when it's much cooler, even better, a light drizzly day will suit me.

So, as far as I was concerned, my day was now done and dusted. All I had to do was take a thirty-metre walk to where I cross the river and head back to the car. As I crossed the river, I noticed a few trout were surface feeding a short distance upstream and well within casting distance. Plus, one was surface feeding under the willows, near the riverbank to the right of me.

My first cast and retrieve went straight up the river. On the river a bow wave appeared behind the March Brown Bug and in no time at all, it was fish on. It was only a small brown trout and like the other small browns it still did everything it could to toss the spinner. It didn't. After its release I went on to catch and release three more small browns, without having to move from where I was standing in the river. Two of those three were caught from under the willows, to the right side of me.

Now, my day was done. All up I had caught and released eight browns and two rainbows, which was a lot more than I had expected to catch here this morning. After a short walk I was back at the car and on the way home at 10:30am. Very happy with another double figure catch.

Equipment Used During My Trout Season:

Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg
Okuma LRF Spin Rods – 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels – ITX-1000
Okuma Inspira Blue Spin Reels - ISX-20B
Okuma Helios SX Spin Reels - HSX-20
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reels - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar Spin Reels - C-10
Platypus Pulse Mono Premium Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Super 100 Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Pre-test Monofilament – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner
Mepps Aglia Furia

Adrian (meppstas)