The trout did bleed for a short time, there wasn't any serious damage to the fish and I released it once I could see it was okay and good for release.
thanks for watching.
cheers
Adrian (meppstas)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpKPjOd7pVo&t=22s
- The beast is in the net.
- My best trout of the season.
After recovering from yesterday afternoon's late spin session in the River Leven it wasn't until two o'clock when I thought about heading to the Mersey River at Kimberley for a late afternoon spin session. Even though it was a little on the cool side, the conditions were reasonably good with it being mainly overcast and a light breeze Westerly breeze of around 10 kph. It was just after 3:20 pm when I crossed the river before making my way up to my starting point which was a wide slow flowing waist deep stretch of river. The reason I headed upstream here was because it had more foliage cover along both sides of the river which is always better when fishing for trout than fishing open waters without cover on either side of it like it was further downstream. I did start the session off with a #0 March Brown Bug spinner in the hope it may draw the attention of a trout off the well covered sides of the river, but it didn't. After twenty minutes without a sign of a trout it was time to go for a hard body lure. The main reason I made the change was because lately the trout weren't going for the spinners in the larger deeper waters in the rivers I've been fishing, but they have taken a liking to the hard bodies over the past few trips. The hard body lure I started was the small rainbow pattern one that's done really well over the past few trips, for a cheap lure it's really sucked in quite a few trout. It took around ten minutes of using it when I picked up my first trout of the session, just a small/medium size brown trout. A few minutes later I had another hookup but lost it as soon as it made a leap from the river. I had reached the end of that long wide waist deep stretch of water and I moved into a fast flowing knee deep run, it was here I went back to the inline spinner to see if I could pick up a trout here using the cast and drift method, sadly there wasn't a sign of a trout in it. I went back to the hard body lure here as well, same result, not a sign of a trout was had.
The following water I moved into was also knee deep, this water was very wide and slow flowing, it's also one that I have always caught a few trout in each time I have fished it. I knew exactly where my fist cast would be and that was into shallow flat water next to a large log that was in the river next to the right hand river bank. That piece of water has always held trout every time I fished here, sometimes I hooked them, other times I haven't. When casting into that small flat water the lure has to land next to the fallen log, drop it short and you won't get a trout, the noise of the lure hitting the water short of the log is enough to spook the trout. It doesn't matter if the lure hits the side of the large log because once it hits it, the lure will drop into the water next to it and that's enough to get a trout to pounce on it. My cast into that area was spot on, right where I wanted, no sooner had I started to retrieve the lure I spotted a large trout move out and sit right up behind the lure. I was a little surprised it didn't take the lure as soon as it hit the water like they normally do, this large brown was pretty cunning and I thought it's not going to take the lure.
By now I had retrieved the lure at least three meters from the log, the lure had also drifted down with the flow as I slowly retrieved it, the trout was still following close behind it. What I did next was to ease the lure forward into the flow then let it drift back a several inches, then move it forward again. As I started to move it forward I gave the rod a light twitch which made the lure flutter, that was enough to get the trout to take it. Once it took the lure all hell broke loose and that's when I saw just how large this trout was, it was much larger than I had anticipated, it was massive. How the hell am I going to land this trout, it made several hard runs and leaps from the river before it decided to head downstream into the shallow fast waters. That's when I felt I could could lose it, if it gets too far downstream in the fast water I wouldn't be able to keep up with it, not only that, I was worried that the ultra thin Platypus 4ln mono-filament line may well part ways where it tied to the small snap swivel. I also wanted to get the camera out and film it like I normally do, but this was a big trout, no way was I going to take the risk of losing it while filming it. I was lucky enough to keep the pressure on and turn the fish so it was facing upstream, once I had it facing upstream I knew I had a good chance of bringing the landing net up behind the fish then drift it back into the net. That's what I did, once in the net it went berserk and nearly jumped back out of it, thankfully it didn't leap out of it. I was still in the middle of the river and had a long wade back to the left shallow side of the river where I could get the lure out of its mouth.
Once at the river bank the lure popped out of its mouth, lady luck gave me a helping hand. I did notice that the trout had some blood on its underside which was a worry, but when I checked the fish to see if there was any gill damage it was all good and the blood was gone. I kept the fish in six inches of flowing water and made sure all was okay with it before I let it swim away. I did weigh it while it was in the net, after deducting the 310 gram weight of the net it left the fish weight at 2.2 kilos (4lb 14 ozs) which made it the best trout of the season so far. Now that that beautiful specimen was back in the river I made my way back to the river banks and decided to call it a day, quite satisfied with how it had turned out, As I neared my exit point there was a small narrow irrigation pump channel that had a nice flow of water running through it. I felt it was worth casting and retrieving the lure through it, on the retrieve I spotted a nice size trout following the lure, a light twitch of the rod to make the lure flutter was all it took and I had my third trout hooked and landed in quick time. That fish was also a beautiful well conditioned brown trout that went 510 grams, once released my day was well and truly done. It was getting darker by the minute and I had a good twenty minute walk back to the car as well as having to cross over the river once more. It was a good one and a half hours spent in the river this afternoon, one that I'll remember for quite some time.
you must be very happy.
