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Trout in the Upper Mersey River
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
With a good dose of rain forecast for the next day or so, I thought I'd head off for a spin session to the upper reaches of the Mersey River before the rain arrived. Not that it was all that early when I hit the river, it was more of a mid-morning start. It was 9:40 am when I was standing at the river edge. Seeing as I was using the same set up as a few days ago, I didn't bother changing the Mepps Bug spinner at this stage. I thought I would give it a go in the dull overcast water first.
Before crossing the river and heading downstream to where I was going to start the spin session, I thought it best to have a few casts and retrieves with the Bug spinner. The first cast was straight across the river and into a flatwater close to the riverbank. No sooner had I started to retrieve the Bug and I had a solid hit from a trout. Unfortunately, it missed taking the treble hooks.
I immediately thought that this was going to be a good day for trout, in these perfect fishing conditions, and I was sure that it was going to be the fast waters that would be where most trout would be caught today. My next cast was directly upstream, keeping the spinner a fraction faster than the flow as I retrieved it. A rainbow trout took the Bug and not long after it was in the net. Once I released that trout, I made my way across the river and headed off to my entry point, around two hundred metres downstream.
The river there was much wider and deeper than where I had crossed over. This stretch of water was one that always gave up a few browns and rainbows, back when I fished here on a regular basis. What I did forget to mention was that this was my first trip of the trout season to this long stretch of river. I hadn't been anywhere near this area at all. The main reason being that it's more suited to a four-wheel drive vehicle, rather than my very low, two-wheel drive Ford that bottoms out quite easily. It only took a couple of casts and retrieves to catch the second rainbow of the morning, and like the previous rainbow it was a nice small/medium sized fish.
Once released it all went quiet for some reason. I had several trout come up behind the spinner and follow it for several metres before they lost interest and moved off. It wasn't until I had covered at least seventy metres of river that I hooked my third trout. That fish tossed the spinner as fast as it took it and I have no idea if it was a brown or rainbow trout. Finally, I was back to where I first crossed the river and from there, I continued to slowly fish my way upstream. I had also changed over to a Mepps #1 Aglia Fluo Micropigment rainbow inline spinner and that spinner caught the next two trout, one rainbow and one brown, from three hook ups. The rainbow was caught (10:30 am) in the river itself, whereas the small brown was caught (10:50 am) in a nice side water.
After having a couple more trout follow and not take the rainbow Aglia in that area, another lure change was made. This time I went for the ever reliable #1 Mepps Aglia Furia, and that lure did the job on the first cast and retrieve, with a nice medium size brown caught (10:55 am) on it. Once I released that trout, I made my way back into the main stream and started doing what I love doing when fishing the fast waters and that's casting and drifting the spinner with the flow. I had a nice two-hundred-metre stretch of fast water to fish from here on and I was quite confident of catching several trout in it. The water wasn't deep either. In fact, the depth of it was mostly below knee deep. It's a water that the novice trout angler would more than likely bypass. It didn't take all that long before I hooked and lost a small trout, before a few minutes picking up what turned out to be the trout of the day, a nice well-conditioned 530g brown trout.
After the release of that trout, and while still working the left-hand side of the river with the Aglia Furia, I caught another three nice browns in a row. Those three trout were all caught within three metres of each other, close to the riverbank on the left-hand side of the river. Providing the trout continued to stay in an aggressive mood, I could see a double figure spin session was in order today. Those last three browns were backed up with a beautifully coloured, solid rainbow trout, that took the Furia on the drift in the middle of the river. That rainbow weighed in at 485g and it was my tenth fish of the day.
After the release of that rainbow a gusty south easterly breeze popped up and the trout fishing slowed down. Once the fishing slowed down the catches were few and far between. I did go on to catch a few more rainbows, taking my total tally to fifteen trout (9 browns and 6 rainbows) from twenty hook ups. This was better than some of my trips of late. The last three trout caught were all small/medium size rainbows, with the last one being caught and released at 12:50 pm. I did continue to fish another two long, fast water runs and never had a touch, let alone saw a trout, which was the most disappointing part of the spin session. Why? Well because those two fast waters have always given up a few trout and for some reason they weren't there. I was really confident that those two stretches of fast water would give up the five trout required to reach the twenty mark, however it wasn't to be. It was still a good spin session and that last rainbow trout that I caught was my 450th trout of the season, so I was quite stoked to have reached that number today.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used During my Trout Season:
TT Red Belly Spin Rod - RBS702L 7’ 1-3kg 2pce
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rod – CE-S-662UL-1 6’6” 2-6lb 2Pce
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-1000
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reel - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar HD Spin Reel – CHD-1000HA
Platypus Pulse Mono
Platypus Super 100 Mono
Platypus Pre-Test Mono
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners