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Wind Change Fires up the Trout
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
I felt that it was time to head off to a stretch of water that I haven't fished for close on three years. The good thing was that it was close to home and thankfully on another property that I was given permission to enter several years ago. The main reason that I haven't been to this area is because of two massive floods that hit the area, doing a lot of damage to the river and the property. After the second flood I did head there and couldn't believe the amount of damage that had occurred along the river. Not only that, but the trout were also few and very far between.
Today when I arrived, I had no idea what to expect, seeing as it's been so long since I last fished this area. Once I reached the small river, I could see that it had changed quite a lot over the past three years. The cattle fences that were washed away from the 2016 floods were still non-existent and the riverbanks on both sides of the river were in poor condition from the cattle having open access to the river wherever they wanted to. Seeing this was disappointing as it meant that the water quality would more than likely be poor, because the cattle don't worry about where they urinate or drop their faeces... and I saw plenty of that in the river as I neared my entry point.
The river level was low to medium height and running reasonably clear. It was 11:20 am by the time I reached my entry point and hopped into the river. The river bottom itself wasn't looking all that good here either, with lots of slime on the bottom, which more than likely was caused by the cattle doing their business in the river.
I used the same ultra lightweight setup as I had on the last trip to a small stream; the Okuma Celilo Finesse 6' spin rod and Epixor EPXT-20 spinning reel, spooled with Platypus Super 100 nylon monofilament in 4lb Clear. With the sun being on the river and the water on the shallow side here, all I did was spook a few small brown trout that were holding out in what shaded areas there were near the riverbanks.
The Mepps #0 Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown spinner was what I started the spin session with. The brown coloured spinner did attract the attention of a few small trout and that's as far as it went. There were no signs of aggression from them at all though in the first two shallow runs. A little further up the river, and twenty minutes later, I had two soft hits from small trout in two consecutive casts and retrieves, and again those hits were really not all that aggressive.
It was time for a lure change, and I decided on a small #00 copper Mepps Aglia spinner. This is one that often gets trout in tough conditions. To make the fishing even tougher now, a gusty north easterly wind decided to show up. With this area being wide open to the conditions, I knew I was going to have a few problems casting the lightweight Aglia spinner into the wind. At times it was near impossible to even cast the spinner into the wind and I just had to wait for a lull and then get a quick cast in.
The trout were here, and I continued to have them follow the spinner, with a couple of them having a little more aggressive go at the lure. As I made my way upstream, I continued to chop and change the Mepps spinners, all to no avail. I was still having trout follow the spinners, but rarely did they have a go at them.
Desperate times called for really desperate decisions and I actually tried a couple of very small hard body lures to see if they would get the trout to fire up. They didn't, so I went back to the Mepps #0 Aglia Fluo Micropigments brown spinner. After having a few more soft hits the wind seemed to drop off and it was as still as ever. I was about to change back to the small copper Aglia, then thought I'd give the Aglia brown a little longer, as I approached a fast-flowing, narrow stretch of shallow water.
The first cast and retrieve was all that it took to get a small trout to take the lure. Finally, after one hour and twenty minutes, I landed the first trout of the spin session. As small as that fish was, I was stoked to catch one, and this was the start of something good. A little further upstream I caught my second brown trout. This was another small fish, much the same size as the first one. Two trout in a few minutes was more to my liking. Would this continue was what I was thinking as I made my way into a longer stretch of fast flowing, knee deep water.
What I did notice, as I approached a nice fast water, was that the wind had sprung up again. This time it was coming from the southwest, which was good, and may just be what the doctor ordered. As the saying goes, ‘When the wind is from the west, the fish bite best’ and it certainly did change the fishing for the better too. The small fast water I had just moved into gave up three medium size trout in four casts and retrieves. Suddenly, I had five trout caught and released in twenty minutes. That's just how quickly it can turn around, given the right weather conditions.
From here on the fishing stayed as good as it gets. The wind had become stronger and was gusting around twenty plus kilometres per hour. I thought it best to just concentrate on the faster flowing stretch of this little river, and it paid off as well with another six trout caught and released, with the best one weighing in at 525 grams. It was 1:33 pm when I released the eleventh trout, and I was starting to feel a little sore in the lower back. I really wanted to finish the day with a dozen trout on my tally sheet, so I pushed on.
It wasn't looking good, with two hits and no hookups, and I was seriously thinking about calling it a day. I knew there was one stretch of water further upstream that would hopefully give up number twelve, so I continued. Once there I hooked and lost a trout on the third cast and retrieve, which didn't impress me all that much. Then, a few minutes later and a little further upstream, I managed to catch and release number twelve. Now, my day was done and dusted at 1:50 pm.
I made my way back to the car feeling pretty satisfied with how the spin session had turned out in the end, especially after the poor start. What I did notice was that the further I went upstream, the better the water quality and river bottom were, probably because of the high riverbanks on both sides of the river, preventing the cattle from getting into the water. The dozen trout that I caught and released today took my season tally to 71 trout in 13 trips, compared to the same time last season being 51 trout in 14 trips. That put a smile on my face when I checked my stats sheets from last season.
Adrian (meppstas)
Equipment Used During My Trout Season:
TT Red Belly Spin Rods - RBS702L 7’0”, 1-3kg, 2pce
Okuma Celilo Finesse Spin Rods – CE-S-602UL-1 6’0”, 2-6lb, 2pce
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-1000
Okuma Epixor XT Spin Reels - EXPT-20
Okuma Ceymar HD Spin Reel – CHD-1000HA
Platypus Pulse Mono nylon monofilament fishing line
Platypus Super 100 nylon monofilament fishing line
Platypus Pre-Test nylon monofilament fishing line
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader
Mepps Inline Spinners
TT Spintrix Inline Spinners