It's been three days since my last session due to inclement weather conditions (Wind, rain & snow) and I'm itching to hit a river again for a spin session. With the winds still gusting at 50kph I'm going to head back to Merseylea to fish the same stretch of river that's well protected from the Westerlies. Thinking there wouldn't be anyone else out fishing a river in these conditions I was surprised to see a car parked at the spot I was going to fish. That was the end of fishing there so I headed onto my other spot only to find another car there as well.. Here I was thinking that I would be the only “nutter” on a river today, how wrong was I. Onto the next spot which I found was clear of vehicles at last. This area wasn't as well protected as the others but there was still enough to keep me happy, besides the forecast was for the wind to ease as the afternoon went on.
- Beautiful section of fast/medium water.
I started of fishing a fifty meter section that had three small fast water runs along it so I'm hoping to pick up a couple of fish here early in the session. The first small run I did have a hook up very early into fishing it but it tossed the little black fury. The next two runs didn't give a yelp either, though I did have a couple of follows. I was now starting to fish another deeper fast water run and this is where I picked up my first medium size brown. That was the only fish taken from there too. I'm now into a long stretch of medium to slow flowing water that varied in depths from 500mms up to around 2.4 mtrs deep. I used the little black fury with just the three hits for just the one hook up which I lost. I stayed with the black fury until I had reached the deeper water when I changed to the Rapala rainbow pattern.
- Good stretch of sheltered water.
It was more difficult casting this (Balsa wood) light weight lure around than the little metal black fury as the wind was just carrying it every where. I was lucky enough not to finish up in the willows on several occasions. I decided to bypass the heavy willow covered sections and fish the top end of it that was more open. Two casts into the fast flowing head water I had a hook up with this fish tossing the lure as quickly as it hit it. The next cast I had another trout take the lure, it was a nice solid brown that took the Rapala just as I was about to lift it from the water. This was a nice brown of around 500 gms, after it had made several runs I started to lead it into the net. Thinking I had this fish beaten seeing it was now on the surface laying side on, I unclipped the landing net. Well, it was within a meter of the net when it decided to give one more head shake, that's when it tossed the lure. That brown would have been number 250 for the trout season too, but it wasn't to be. Ahead of me is another long wide stretch of deep slow flowing water so I'll be sticking with the Rapala here too.
- Long section of medium/slow flow.
This run was reasonably sheltered and there were quite a few trout jumping after black spinners in several areas along this stretch of river. I had around a dozen or so casts and managed five hook ups and lost every one of them. The trout were in a real smash and grab mood, they didn't come up and follow the lure at all, they just rushed at it and hit it on the turn. So they were just getting lipped most times. I decided to change over to Muzza's rainbow pattern hard body lure to see if I could get number 250 to finally be caught today. Three casts was all it took before I had the trout on that I wanted to reach that milestone today. This fish stayed on all the way into the net too which was a relief. A couple of photos it was soon on it's way, it wasn't a big brown (430gm) by all means but it was the one I dearly wanted to catch before day's end. I stayed with this lure for a while longer before going back to the Rapala as I was now back into fishing shallower water. I did have another six hook ups for three medium (300gm) browns caught and released when I decided to call it a day at 6.15pm.
- Muzza's lure catches number 250.
- Head shot of the brown.
cheers
Adrian