Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » The Platypus & The Trout
The Platypus & The Trout
By Adrian Webb
I had no intentions of going fishing today, however as the day went on I couldn't help myself... I just had to go, even if it was only for a couple of hours. The original reason I wasn't going was because I was having a big spin session in the Leven River the next day and I didn't want to aggravate the back and hips. I had placed several heat patches on my back and hips from the time I got up in the morning and I felt fine.
It was dead on 2:00pm when I hit the little tannin stream and my set up was an Okuma 6' LRF 1-3 kg rod, Okuma Ceymar C-10 reel spooled with brand new Platypus Super 100 clear 4lb mono line and the starting lure was a Mepps #00 copper Aglia spinner.
The stream was around 3-4 inches lower than my last trip here a week ago but still good enough for a spin session. It only took two casts, up and across a small pool, to catch the first brown trout and like most in this stream it was a small fish.
The next cast was straight across to the opposite side of the pool, where I had an instant hook up. Two head shakes from the trout and it was gone. It was my fault that I lost the fish because I was too busy holding the camera in my right hand to film it for a short time. Both the takes from the trout were quite aggressive, which was good and I hoped there'd be plenty more like it.
As I approached a wide, deep pool I noticed a trout break the surface, so I had a direct cast straight up the pool. As I retrieved the copper Aglia spinner a bow wave appeared behind the lure, however that's as far as it went. The trout just followed it. I twitched the rod to make the spinner blade flutter and the trout still didn't take it.
A change of lure might turn things around, so I went for the #00 gold Aglia Mouche Noire, mainly because of the gold blade. I just felt the gold colour may do the trick on the trout. The very next cast into the same area and with the same retrieve action the trout pounced on it. I had my second trout hooked and landed.
Not long after that I picked up two more trout in another wide deep pool. Four trout from five hook ups in twenty five minutes was just the start I was hoping for. The following twenty minutes I hooked three more trout, landed two and lost one on its second leap from the river. Good thing was that one of the two trout I hooked and landed went 515 grams and was a beautiful dark brown/gold coloured well-conditioned male fish.
The further up that I fished, the shallower the stream became and the slightest movement sent trout heading in all directions in the low tannin coloured water. I continued to pick up trout on a regular basis and they were all small solid, well-conditioned, aggressive fish.
As I approached a narrow stretch of river, that was full of debris, I spotted some movement in the river that I thought was a trout. Well it wasn't a trout at all, it was an adult platypus feeding in and around the debris. I was lucky enough to be recording the area at the time and watched as it swam towards me. It stopped in a shallow gravelly piece of water only three feet from me, before moving off downstream. Seeing a platypus is always a bonus and one of the highlights of trout fishing rivers and streams here in Tasmania.
A little further up, as I was slowly making my way up a very narrow shallow stretch of water, I heard a noise to the right of me. It was the sound of rocks being moved and at first I thought it may have been a freshwater lobster close to the river bank. Then I spotted it, a young platypus had made its way out of its den and started fossicking around in front of its den.
I did managed to get some video footage of the young platypus before it spotted me and darted back to safety. Seeing that young platypus topped my day right off and I didn't care if I caught another trout. The adult platypus that I had seen a little further down the stream was more likely to have been its mother.
When I called it a day at 4:00pm I had caught and released eleven trout all up. It was another good spin session in this small stream. Unless we received some rain I doubted that I would return here again this season, with the river getting lower as each days passed by.
Adrian (meppstas)