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Trout and Lobster
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
Meppstas shares with us a session from prior to the season closure, where he encountered not just the target species, trout, but also a nice surprise in the rarely seen freshwater lobster.
With the trout season getting that much closer to closing, I needed to start getting onto quite a few more trout to reach the 500 target that I set myself at the start of the season. Even though I have a few weeks to reach it, I still like to stay in touch when I'm getting closer to the set target. I knew where I could get onto a few more too, the tannin waters were flowing pretty well, after recent rainfall a few days ago, so that's where I headed.
Today's spin session was a late afternoon start and it was 2:50 pm by the time I reached the stream where I was to cross over. Before crossing the river, I thought I'd flick the little Mepps #00 gold up and across the river to see if there might be a trout in the area. There was and on the second cast and retrieve I caught a small brown. After its release I crossed the river and headed off downstream for a couple of hundred meters to where I re-entered the water and started the spin session proper at 3:00 pm.
It only took five minutes of spin fishing to catch the second trout of the afternoon. This was only a small/medium size brown trout, but they all counted at the end of the day. Not only that, even though most trout in these small streams vary quite a lot in size, they always put up a good fight and are fun to catch.
After hooking and losing a small trout it was pretty quiet for a while (20 minutes), before I finally caught and released the third trout of the session. That fish was a nice medium side fish. Close on ten minutes later and I was onto a better fish. This trout was the fish of the day so far and it was a beautifully coloured, well-conditioned brown too. Not a massive size fish at all, but one that weighed in at 345 grams, which is a good size for this small stream.
From then on, the trout were caught in ten-minute intervals and in various sizes. The good thing was that they were all legal-size trout as well and, like always, were all released for another day. With seven trout caught and released, I thought it was time to call it a day, but then decided to fish on for a little longer.
After hooking and losing a small trout, it took another twenty minutes before I finally hooked and landed my eighth trout of the afternoon. I don't know why I bothered but I did continue fishing for another twenty minutes and that's when I caught my ninth trout. It was like the majority of the trout caught today, a small/medium size fish. Now my day was done.
I had hoped that this small tannin stream would have fished much better today, given that there was still a nice flow in it, but it wasn't to be. Still, nine more trout added to my season's tally is better than none isn't it.
The highlight of the day was when I came across a nice size freshwater lobster, something one doesn't see all that often in the streams nowadays. They are also a protected species that go with a $10,000 fine if taken from the water. Sadly, I didn't get a photo of it due to the dull conditions and cloud glare on the water surface, but I did get some video footage of it which was good.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used Today:
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods – CE-S-662UL-1, 6’6”, 2-6lb
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reels – ITX-1000
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reels - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar HD Spin Reels – CHD-1000HA
Platypus Pulse Mono
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners