My 2019/20 Trout Season Report..

[meppstas]

This is page one of nine that I wrote up during the week of the 2019/20 Trout Season...
Thought this would be enough to let you see how my season went .. The full report also goes to the Inland Fisheries here in Tasmania as well..

cheers
Adrian

' The 2019/20 Trout season Report.'' page1 of 9

Well another season has closed so here's my full 2019-20 trout season report on the rivers I fished & how many trout I caught & released in those rivers as well as my I thoughts on the rivers fished.
Before I get onto to it here's a quick run down on the 2018/19 trout season when I had 76 trips to the rivers for a total of 573 trout being caught. It consisted of 548 brown trout & 24 rainbow trout with the seasons total average catch being 7.64 fish.
** Below are the results of the 2019/20 trout season:

** Trips: 61 in total. ** Trout caught: ''Brown'' 402 ''Rainbow '' 12
**Total trout caught: 414 Seasons total average: 6.78 fish

* Mersey River: 13 trips, 53 brown trout & 11 rainbow trout caught & released.
Best days catch: 12 trout. (8 browns & 4 rainbows) best fish: brown trout 705 grams.(22/11/19) best rainbow trout: 295 grams. (22/11/19) average catch rate per trip : 4.9 fish

* Leven River: 6 trips, 18 brown trout with one being kept, this also includes one trip without a trout being caught. Best days catch: 9 Brown trout. (19/12/10) Best fish: 2 @ 535 grams. (8/10/19 & 24/12/19) average catch rate per trip: 3 fish

* Meander River: 11 trips, 113 brown trout & 1 rainbow trout caught, one brown trout was kept.
Best days catch: 26 brown trout. (10/1/20) Best fish: brown trout 1.04 kgs. (20/2/20) best rainbow: 355 grams (17/2/20) average catch rate per trip: 10.4 fish

* Dasher River: 3 trips, 11 brown trout caught & released. Best catch: 8 brown trout. (16/8/19) Best fish: 320 grams (30/8/19) average catch rate per trip: 3.7 fish

* Un-named Tannin streams: 28 trips, 208 trout caught with one being kept.
Best catch: 17 fish. (5/11/19) Best fish: 525 grams (7/3/20) average catch rate per trip: 7.4 fish

So as you can see my season hasn't been all that good like previous years, yet in saying that my overall average wasn't all that bad overall. Less trips to the rivers due to health problems (lower back & hips) did see me missing quite a few days in the rivers. One thing I have done is spent longer hours and covered more distance in the rivers than previous seasons and that showed one thing, the trout numbers are down in two of the rivers I fished. The two rivers I'm referring to are the Leven River & the Mersey River, both didn't produce a lot of trout this season for the distance covered. With two to three kilometres of river covered both rivers didn't give up all that many trout. The lower reaches of the Mersey River in the Merseylea & Kimberley area fished the worst of all the rivers which is a shame as it used to be one of my favourite areas to fish. The river bottom in these areas is in very poor condition as well, standing up in the river is bad enough let alone catch a trout. Cormorants were in large numbers in this area too as they have been now for several years.

** Equipment used: Okuma Celilo Finesse ULS 1-3 kg trout rods, Okuma Helios SX20 & Okuma Inspira ISX20B spinning reels, Mepps inline spinners, Platypus Super 100 UHT mono lines, Platypus Pretest premium grade mono, Platypus Stealth FC lead line & Boomerang Tool Products.

[Sinsemilla]

Beautiful photos as always Adrian, well done.

I haven't caught a trout in ages.. Hopefully i can get one before the season closes.

Cheers, Anth

[meppstas]

Thanks Anth, let's hope you get the chance to get one mate..

cheers
Adrian

[Sebb]

Beautiful photos Adrian.
Yes, though less trips reducing your total catch number, the average is still very productive.
You also mentioned poor condition, why is that? Other than the cormorants eating them.

[Bugatti]

Well done Adrian

Love your photos as always. And reading through your report, I did get the feel of how hard and trying it has been for you this season. You must have Greek blood in you, if not you are an Honorary Trojan and with the Herculean effort you have achieved , , , , and done with an Achilles lower back & hip, Zeus would be proud , , , , as we all are of you

Those Rivers and Streams seem to be getting a hammering over the years with, storms, floods, wild Blue (or was it Black) berry bushes, Cow poop run off, Cormorants, river and river bed degradation , , , , do your reports to Inland Fisheries get heeded and possibly with action, especially because of the high calibre of report and Author?

Cheers, Bill

I'm confidently working on graphics for you 14 Trophy Celebrations

[meppstas]

Thanks guys..
Seb, the lower Mersey has been in poor condition for a few years now and is really declining each season.. There's a lot of run off from hardwood plantations along the rivers even more so after logging & clear felling further upstream, farm fertilizer etc run all add to the problems. There's also two Hydro Dams on the river in the upper reaches so the water flow is regulated through out the year.. Summer is when the water level drops and the water really becomes warm in the lower reaches. There were reports of dead trout in these areas last season and probably would have been again this season as well...The last trip I had to the lower Mersey in the Merseylea area the river had a smell to it, one I didn't really like.. hardly saw a trout that day..haven't been back there since..

Bill, they do read them, but I rarely hear back from them on what I think and feel could & should be done.. here's my last couple of pages of the report... I mean the trout size limit is a joke, there's more confusion with the amount of different sizes & limits on trout in the highland lakes that's confusing.. A majority of the lakes all have different bag limits, sizes and you can only keep so many fish at one size and so many at another. Now to me that's more confusing to fisher's than having a 30cm size limit for every river across the state..

** The 2019/20 Trout Season Report.. continued.. p8

As for the rivers, well the best of the large rivers was the Meander River, it did perform very well, in saying that it was only the fast waters that gave up the majority of the trout caught. It was also good to catch one of a very minority of rainbow trout in the Meander River too, I'm sure they would do well in this river if given the chance. Then there's the small tannin waters , they were great in giving up just over half of my seasons total catch. As tough as it is to get into some of them it was certainly well worth the effort & time I put into it. Better still was the fact that once in them they were quite easy on the body with the stream bottom in most of them being light on boulders & rocks.
The little Dasher River I can't say all that much about it due to the fact I only had the three trips to it, low water levels has probably had a impact on the trout in it. Hopefully it will return to a good little trout water in the next year or two. The Leven River, well it didn't perform all that well for me in the few trips I had to it and as much as I love this large tannin water I doubt I'll be heading there all that often next season. Then there's the Mersey River, another one that's gone downhill in the lower reaches over the past few years. Some say it's due to the record 2016 floods that the fishing is poor, then there was and still is the problem with Cormorants in the river, they have to be having a big impact on the river for sure. There's also a problem with the water quality of the heavily silted river bottom, it's so heavily silted there's no where for trout to spawn anyway. Any release of trout in the lower reaches would be a waste of fish, the upper reaches in the Liena area would be a good area to start a restocking program with adult browns & rainbow trout from Liaweene/Great Lake. One of the biggest disappointments this season was the lack of rainbow trout in the Mersey River, their numbers and sizes have been dropping over the past few seasons now.

Cormorants

Yes, that's Cormorants flying over the Mersey River at Merseylea..


** The 2019/20 Trout Season Report... continued.. p9

There's a couple of things that I feel I should mention, firstly it's the size limit for trout in our rivers across the state. A size limit of only 22cms is way to small and should be lifted to at least 30cms for every river across the state. The bag limit in the rivers this season was dropped to five trout per day which was good, but the size limit must also be increased to match it. Secondly, with thousands of trout being put into the Highland Lakes every year on a regular basis I can't see why we can't add a few hundred into our rivers too, not every licensed trout person likes to fish lakes, I for one don't fish the lakes. When the IFS get back their end of season trout survey that is sent out to licensed trout persons and they see how many trout are caught in each river, then why not replace that amount of adult trout back into the each of those rivers. I know that it won't replace all the trout that are caught and kept that aren't reported, but it will at least get some trout stocks back into them.
These are just my views on what I think could and should be done to give our rivers across the state some chance of building up the trout stocks, natural recruitment to me doesn't seem to be working all that well now days. We pay for a trout license to fish the rivers & lakes and I like many other river fisher's believe it's time to do something about the trout stocks in the rivers, it's not all about filling the lakes up with thousands of trout all the time. It's time to give the river fisher's a fair go at catching some decent trout again.

cheers
Adrian

[Lightningx]

Enjoyed the read Adrian!
Good to hear that your overall average still wasn’t too bad even though your season wasn’t the best like in previous years!
Always love looking at your beautiful pics!
Cheers

[Bugatti]

Bill, they do read them, but I rarely hear back from them on what I think and feel could & should be done.. here's my last couple of pages of the report... I mean the trout size limit is a joke, there's more confusion with the amount of different sizes & limits on trout in the highland lakes that's confusing.. A majority of the lakes all have different bag limits, sizes and you can only keep so many fish at one size and so many at another. Now to me that's more confusing to fisher's than having a 30cm size limit for every river across the state..

cheers
Adrian

I totally agree Adrian. Not only confusing for the honest person, it is also an opportunity for some unscrupulous people to "play dumb".

Something similar happens here with the Mulloway. One thing to have different sizes for the BIG Mullies but also allowing a dramatically wide range for smaller ones AND a higher bag limit of 10 (30 for one Boat) seems odd especially as inside the Coorong is a known Nursery

Cheers, Bill

[Boonanza]

That's a great end of season report Adrian and another successful season well done

[meppstas]

Thanks Boonanza, it was one that turned out a little better in the end than I thought it was going too, still a tough season for me though..
Looking forward to next season already even though the body isn't ready the mind is..

cheers
Adrian