Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » Upper Mersey River
Upper Mersey River
I thought it was time to give the upper reaches of the Mersey River another go, so I headed up to Liena for a spin session in what was beautiful fishing conditions. Like my trip to the Meander River two days ago, it was another foggy, mild morning there. The river itself had good flow and was running nice and clear.
I had a thirty minute walk ahead of me and by the time I hit the river it was 8:50am. Once again I started off with the ever-reliable copper Aglia Mouche Noire in a nice medium fast water run that looked really fishy... it wasn't. There wasn't a sign of a trout to be seen.
Ahead of me was some beautiful stretches of river that always gave up a fish or two... today they didn't. I tried a variety of Mepps spinners and several small hard body lures, and all I managed was one soft hit and miss on a little #00 gold Black Fury spinner, from a small brown. The fog was starting to lift as the sun rose higher, so I went back to using the copper Aglia Mouche Noire.
It wasn't until I had come to a long, wide, one metre deep, medium flowing stretch of river that I had a trout take the spinner. At last I had a hook up and it wasn't from a cast and drift either, it was a direct cast and retrieve straight up the river that did it. To finally catch a trout, after being in the river for an hour and twenty minutes, was a relief. I was thinking it was going to be a 'donut' day for sure.
A little further upstream and twelve minutes later, after another direct cast and retrieve straight up the river, I had another small brown hooked and landed. How quickly things can turn around when chasing trout in the rivers, nothing for so long then two in reasonably quick time.
On the next two stretches of river I had a couple of follows from half interested browns, before they turned and moved off. The next stretch I moved into was a nice medium/fast water and three casts into that run and I had a solid rainbow take the Mouche Noire spinner. It wasn't a large 'bow but it was a well-conditioned fish that put up one hell of a fight in the fast water.
I took my time with this rainbow, it was the fish of the day by far and I didn't want to drop it. Four minutes after it took the lure I managed to have it in close enough to slip it into the net. It was a beautifully coloured, 420 gram rainbow trout. That rainbow was landed at 10:50am and was the last trout seen for the rest of the spin session that ended just on 11:30am.
It was another very disappointing spin session I've had here in the upper reaches of the river. Well over a kilometre of river fished, with just the three trout caught and released and only one other small brown that nipped at the spinner, plus two follows. A long stretch of river that I regularly caught twelve to fifteen trout per trip each time I fished it. It's another top end river trip that won't happen here again this season.
Adrian (meppstas)