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Trout Take the Bug
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
With the afternoon being mainly overcast and seeing as it had been quite some time (Nov 26, 2021) since I had fished the Dasher River, today I thought a trip to it may be worthwhile for a late afternoon spin session. After parking the car and taking a twenty-minute walk through private property, it was 2:55pm when I finally reached the river.
Once there I couldn't believe how low the water level was. It was the lowest I had seen it and much lower than I had ever fished it. The biggest problem would be finding the trout. I know the trout will be in the river and more likely in those stretches of water that have a bit of flow in them. The larger, wide, slow stretches of water will also hold trout however they'll be skittish at the slightest sound or movement once I get close to them.
I started the spin session off with a small #00 Mepps Aglia gold spinner but soon changed to a #00 March Brown coloured Bug, when a small trout followed the gold Aglia and never had a go at it. Had I been in the other tannin stream I love to fish the gold Aglia and it works a treat on the trout. Then, the lower water level here may have something to do with that too. In saying that, it always amazes me why the trout are so different in terms of their choice of lures that I use in them, especially when both waters are nearly identical to each other.
Anyway, it wasn't until I was thirty-five minutes into the spin session that I picked up the first trout of the session. This fish was caught in a small, narrow, medium-flowing stretch of water. As I approached that small and narrow water, I noticed a trout surface feeding and that's when I lobbed the spinner a metre ahead of where I spotted the trout. No sooner had I started the retrieve and the trout took it hard and fast. That's how easy it was. As always, on every trip I take to a river or stream, it's nice to get a score on the board, even if it is a small 220g fish.
The next couple or small, shallow runs I had a couple of soft hits from small trout but couldn't manage a hook up from either fish. It wasn't until fifteen minutes later, when I moved into a wide, shallow, medium-flowing stretch of water, that I caught two small browns from four hook ups. Each of the hook ups was in narrow, fast-flowing tail water, just where I expected them to be. The thing I didn't expect was so many small trout being in the one small run.
As I moved into another wide, slow-flowing stretch of water, trout were darting every which way and I wasn't confident of getting a hook up in it. It wasn't until I flicked the Bug into the top end of it that I did get a trout to take the lure. That fish made one leap from the river and out popped the spinner. Several minutes later I had a good run on the trout, and after losing a few early on I went on to catch and release four browns in ten minutes. All those trout were caught in the tail and head waters where there was fast flowing water. These are all good areas for the trout to get a feed.
I did have a few quiet moments of not landing a fish, after hooking them. Those fish were all hooked in the slow flowing waters. Even though I knew it would be tough to catch trout in those waters, I wasn't bypassing them as you never know, one or two fish may take the lure and stay on long enough to make it into the net.
As I continued to fish my way upstream, I was still picking up small/medium size trout and before I knew it, I had passed double figures. The March Brown was doing a great job on the trout and all I had to do was run the sharpening stone over the treble hooks every now and then. It was 5:15pm and I had caught and released thirteen trout, which was something I didn't think I would achieve, especially the way the session started off. Then, for some reason, the trout went off the March Brown spinner, so I changed to a Stone Fly coloured Bug spinner to see if that would fire them up again. It did and I went on to catch and release another four browns from six hook ups.
My time in the river came to an end at 5:25pm. Seventeen trout caught and released was above and beyond what I had expected to end the session with. Better still, it was my best catch in this river for the season so far. I'm hoping for some rain now to give this little river a much-needed lift, which will give the trout a much-needed run of cool fresh water that will make them more aggressive.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods - ULS 1-3kg Trout Rod
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel - ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse Mono – 4lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 4lb
Mepps Bug Inline Spinners – March Brown & Stone Fly