Trout still few & far between...
Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2018 6:32 pm
Trout still few & far between.. 5-10-18
Woke up to a cool overcast morning with a maximum temp of around 14 degrees set for later in the day I decided I would give the Mersey River a short session before the 20 kph plus NNW winds arrive later in the day. The reason it's going to be a short session is because it's the start of the Bathurst 1000 V8 Supercars weekend at Mt Panorama. Apart from poor weather the Bathurst 1000 is the only thing that stops me from fishing during the trout season. Once I arrived I had a short walk with a bit of bush bashing to do before I was in the river by 10:00am and immediately noticed a bit of movement in the water a few feet off the river bank close some overhanging willows. I had the same set up on that I used a few days ago in this river with the Mepps #1 Aglia Furia spinner. It was on the second cast upstream and a retrieve parallel to the river bank when a bow wave appeared behind the spinner. It wasn't until I had the spinner within five feet of me when a brown had a crack at the Furia, as soon as it took it I could see it was only lipped. With one quick head shake it spat the spinner and darted off. It was a solid brown that would easily have gone around one kilo too, not the start I wanted at all. The river was still running at a medium height and very clear, the river bottom was it's usual rocky self, it was also covered in a brown slime which made it like an ice skating rink. This river is always a tough one to wade as the rocks roll underfoot, being slippery is not what I would call an added bonus either. After losing that brown I slowly made my way upstream casting and drifting the Aglia spinner without any signs of a fish. I thought a change of spinner may turn things around so it was on with a Aglia TW Streamer, the same one that caught my first little brown a few days ago. It took at least twenty minutes before a trout finally took it, two leaps from the river saw the fish go one way & the spinner the other. It was nearly time for me to start screaming & let off some steam, but I didn't, I kept my cool. I stuck with the TW Streamer for another fifty meters before going back to the Aglia Furia as I got closer to a fast flowing stretch of river.
Once I reached the fast flowing stretch of river I started doing the cast and drift with the # 1 Aglia spinner. After some fifteen minutes of casting up and across the Mersey the Furia I was onto a beautiful rainbow that went mental once it knew it was hooked. It made plenty of runs every which way while making at least eight leaps from the river before it tired & I had it in close enough to slip the net under it.
Once in the net it wasn't as big as I thought it was, I was only a medium 370 gram fish in the end. I was still stoked to catch a fish though because until then things were looking very grim. It was nearly 11:30 am when I released the 'bow and with Bathurst being on the TV at 12:00 pm it was time to call it a day.. Not my best day on a river and once again it was a rainbow trout that saved me from having a “doughnut day” in the Mersey River...
cheers
Adrian..
**PS: met up with Basti a few days earlier & we spent around three & a half hours in the lower Mersey River.. fish were there but boy they were in a mood.. Basti missed hooking a nice brown early on and had several follows during the time in the river, all I could manage was three very small browns, didn't even bother to photograph them...
Woke up to a cool overcast morning with a maximum temp of around 14 degrees set for later in the day I decided I would give the Mersey River a short session before the 20 kph plus NNW winds arrive later in the day. The reason it's going to be a short session is because it's the start of the Bathurst 1000 V8 Supercars weekend at Mt Panorama. Apart from poor weather the Bathurst 1000 is the only thing that stops me from fishing during the trout season. Once I arrived I had a short walk with a bit of bush bashing to do before I was in the river by 10:00am and immediately noticed a bit of movement in the water a few feet off the river bank close some overhanging willows. I had the same set up on that I used a few days ago in this river with the Mepps #1 Aglia Furia spinner. It was on the second cast upstream and a retrieve parallel to the river bank when a bow wave appeared behind the spinner. It wasn't until I had the spinner within five feet of me when a brown had a crack at the Furia, as soon as it took it I could see it was only lipped. With one quick head shake it spat the spinner and darted off. It was a solid brown that would easily have gone around one kilo too, not the start I wanted at all. The river was still running at a medium height and very clear, the river bottom was it's usual rocky self, it was also covered in a brown slime which made it like an ice skating rink. This river is always a tough one to wade as the rocks roll underfoot, being slippery is not what I would call an added bonus either. After losing that brown I slowly made my way upstream casting and drifting the Aglia spinner without any signs of a fish. I thought a change of spinner may turn things around so it was on with a Aglia TW Streamer, the same one that caught my first little brown a few days ago. It took at least twenty minutes before a trout finally took it, two leaps from the river saw the fish go one way & the spinner the other. It was nearly time for me to start screaming & let off some steam, but I didn't, I kept my cool. I stuck with the TW Streamer for another fifty meters before going back to the Aglia Furia as I got closer to a fast flowing stretch of river.
Once I reached the fast flowing stretch of river I started doing the cast and drift with the # 1 Aglia spinner. After some fifteen minutes of casting up and across the Mersey the Furia I was onto a beautiful rainbow that went mental once it knew it was hooked. It made plenty of runs every which way while making at least eight leaps from the river before it tired & I had it in close enough to slip the net under it.
Once in the net it wasn't as big as I thought it was, I was only a medium 370 gram fish in the end. I was still stoked to catch a fish though because until then things were looking very grim. It was nearly 11:30 am when I released the 'bow and with Bathurst being on the TV at 12:00 pm it was time to call it a day.. Not my best day on a river and once again it was a rainbow trout that saved me from having a “doughnut day” in the Mersey River...
cheers
Adrian..
**PS: met up with Basti a few days earlier & we spent around three & a half hours in the lower Mersey River.. fish were there but boy they were in a mood.. Basti missed hooking a nice brown early on and had several follows during the time in the river, all I could manage was three very small browns, didn't even bother to photograph them...