Rain puts an end to a good spin session. 12-9-17
Finally after checking the online river plots one of the rivers I fish had dropped low enough for me to hit it for a spin session. That river was the Meander, this will be my first trip of the season to it. Once there it was still a little higher than expected but still safe enough for wading. The area I'm going to fish today is probably the only one that is safe enough to fish at the height it is at this stage. That's the good thing about knowing everything about the rivers I fish which has come from many years of fishing them. With rain forecast later in the day I hit the river just after 10:20am in what was cool and heavy overcast conditions with a light North Westerly breeze.
- Entered the river here..
I started the session off with a #1 Aglia-e red & silver blade spinner, another new one that I wanted to see if it could attract a trout. After working my way upstream in a very cold, clear river it took just on five minutes of spinning before I had my first take on the Aglia. I had cast directly upstream parallel to the river bank and watched a bow wave appear behind the spinner as I retrieved it along a shallow run close to the river bank. I knew the trout was very close to the spinner because I felt the action of the blade change. I raised the rod tip a little then lowered it while slowing down the retrieve, that's when the trout took it. This was a solid fish that made several runs and leaps from the river before I finally had it in the net. Once in the net out popped the spinner which often happens from time to time. Not that I mind because all I have to do is take a couple of photos and release it without having to handle the fish.
- First of the day..
- First of the day taken here..
It was pretty slow going after that fish so I decided to change over to a #0 Aglia fluro tiger spinner and see if that would get the trout's attention. It did, three cast and retrieves to the opposite river bank had a nice medium size brown hit it in no time at all. Number two for the morning was soon in the net, photographed and back in the river. There was quite a lot of flow in the river and it was pretty tough going in most stretches of water. With the river being so cold I could barely feel my feet any more so I hopped out for a few minutes just to let them warm up a little. Once back in the river it wasn't all that long before I had another quick take from a small brown which tossed the spinner in no time at all. Three more hit and misses had me making a change of lure once again. This time it was on with the Atomic Shad4 ghost gill brown mid diver hard body lure, one that has produced quite a few trout here before.
- Aglia fluro tiger & brown trout..
- Much deeper and a lot colder here..
Well, this was the best decision of the morning so far because in no time at all I caught another two nice browns in quick time. Those two fish just took the lure hard and fast without any hesitation at all. A little further up the river I was soon onto another nice brown, not long after that one I had picked up another two well conditioned fish. Then the rain started, slowly at first before it became much heavier and I knew the session would be ending very soon. I pushed on through one more small stretch of river where I picked up another two small/medium browns before calling it a day. I only had a vest on over my shirt and I was getting too wet to continue on plus I still had a 600 meter walk back to the car. By the time I had reached the car I was saturated but still happy with how the two and a half hour session had gone with nine browns caught and released.
- A couple of browns taken here..
- A dark well conditioned brown..
- The last two browns where caught here..
- Ghost gill brown did the job..
- Number eight for the day..
cheers
Adrian
