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Trout 500 for the Season
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Seeing as I only needed another three trout to reach the 500 trout target that I set myself for this season, I decided not to wait another day to reach it. With rain forecast for all day tomorrow, I made the decision to head off to my favourite tannin water, to see if I could get it over and done with. It was 3:05pm by the time I hit the river, which was a little on the low side but still deep enough thanks to the 6mm of rain that we had yesterday.
I started the session off using a small copper Mepps #00 Aglia inline spinner, thinking that the copper colour would stand out better in the dark water. It wasn't all that long before I decided that the White Miller Bug spinner would more than likely be a better choice, so on it went. Not long after the changeover I had the first trout hooked, played and in the net. This was a nice small / medium size trout and just the start that I was hoping for.
Then, it was pretty quiet, without a sign of a trout. It wasn't until I reached one of the rare, wide and deeper stretches of water on this little stream, that I caught my second trout of the afternoon. I had made several casts and retrieves in that water and was about to move onto the next piece of water, before I decided to have one more cast. Thankfully, that was a good decision. The cast was a long one to the top end of the stream. On the retrieve I felt a light bump on the spinner, gave the rod a light twitch and that was enough to get the trout to take the spinner.
This was a beautifully coloured brown trout, that had taken the Mepps Bug, and it was a solid fish at that. It wasn't all that long before I had it in the net and once in the net I weighed it, deducted the net weight and the trout weight was 485 grams. This was a good size fish for such a small stream.
With only one more trout required to reach my season's set target, I was feeling quite confident of having it in the landing net sooner than later. It was, just ten minutes later, while fishing a small and deep pocket of water, that was well covered with overhanging tea trees, I picked up the third trout of the spin session. Trout number 500 for the season had been caught. As much as I would have liked that trout to have been larger than it was, in the end it doesn't really mean all that much. A fish is a fish and size doesn't matter as they all add up at the end of the day.
Once released, I was about to call it a day, however knowing that I only needed two more trout to pass last season's total catch of 502 fish, I decided to fish on a little longer. It then took me a lot longer than I thought it would to catch the next trout. In fact, it took me an hour before I finally had the fourth trout of the day in the net.
That fish was a beautiful well-conditioned brown trout too and not much smaller than the 485g trout landed earlier. With just one decent stretch of water ahead of me, before I was nearing where I had parked the car, I was hoping that water would do the right thing and give up the trout I wanted.
As I approached that open stretch of water, I spotted a small trout jumping from the water, so I knew there was at least one trout there. Standing at the tail end of that long stretch of water I thought it's now or never. I need to catch a fish here and if not, I'm heading to the car as I didn't feel like continuing any further. I have caught trout in this stretch of water several times before calling it a day and I was hoping to do the same again today.
I made a long cast to the top end of that stretch of water and while retrieving nothing happened over the first five metres of water. Just when I thought I'd be having a few more casts and retrieves, a trout took the lure. It was fish on! Now, all I wanted was that trout not to leap from the river and toss the spinner. It did make two leaps from the water and the lure held firm. The trout made it into the landing net and my day was done. I had achieved what I set out to do, I caught my 500th trout and passed last season's total of 501 trout. With eleven days of the trout season left, every fish that I catch from now on is a bonus.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used Today
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - UL 1-3kg Trout Rod
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 4lb
Mepps Inline Spinners
Mepps Bug Inline Spinner