Meander River average, Western Creek great.. 18-10-17
With the river levels now down to a good wading height I thought a trip to the Meander River was worthwhile today.. I was a little slow off the mark this morning as I'm still recovering from lower back & hip problems from last Sunday when my fishing session only lasted thirty minutes.. The weather was going to be a warm 23 degrees with NNW breeze to 11 kph later in the day. I did manage to leave Sheffield at 7:10 am and reached the Meander River by 7:50 am, after a two kilometer walk to the river I was flicking the little Daiwa sushi prawn lure around in the river just on 8:15 am. The river was running clear and the rocky river bottom was covered with a brown algae which was going to be a pain in the butt if and when the lure bounces of a rock or two on the retrieve.
The first two long stretches of river were pretty quiet without a sign of a trout and I'm thinking the trout will be few and far between the way it's started.. Then I came to a fast water run and it was there I picked up my first brown (8:50am) for the morning. So ends the chance of a donut day again was my first thought as it normally is.. It wasn't a large fish, just a nice medium size 390 gram trout that was in good condition. The one thing I did notice was the massive amount of midges that were hovering along the river banks and just above the surface of the river. Not a sign of a trout rising or jumping to feed on them which is unusual. There wasn't any sign of other insect life flying around either, they may start to appear later as the day gets warmer.
As I approached the next small medium flowing run it was then I knew why the trout weren't surface feeding and why the fishing was on the quiet side.. “ CORMORANTS ” are in the river, there were three of them in this small piece of water. So they copped a pelting with a few rocks that sent them scattering the hell out of here, I didn't bother to fish that small run of river. I heard a few reports that there were quite a lot of them that have come across from the mainland due to it being dry over there. The following stretch of water is a long wide one and it was there I came across more cormorants in the river, five of them this time. That stretch of water was also bypassed, as I was moving onto the next one I saw several more cormorants flying overhead. They were heading towards the lower end of the river going by the direction they were going. I'm just hoping this isn't a sign of things to come like it was back in the 2012/13 trout season here in Tasmania when there were thousands of them down here in almost every river & lake across the state. They had a massive impact on the rivers with thousands of trout being taken out of them, some rivers are only just coming back to what they were before the influx of the large birds.
Back to the fishing, I decided I would just fish once more stretch of river before getting out and heading back to the car then head elsewhere. Where that would be I hadn't made my mind up yet. As I moved into the next stretch of water I finally saw a trout rise, that's where the little lure was cast and in no time at all it was taken by that trout. A solid one at that too as it made several runs and leaps from the river before I managed to lead it into the net. Like the other brown trout it wasn't a large fish but one at 550 grams which was still a nice fish to catch. That was it for me in the Meander River (10:45 am) I was soon out of it and on my way back to the car. I decided I would fish Western Creek seeing it was on my way home if I went on the back roads. I was hoping that it would have enough flow in it to be able to fish there, it does get very low once the weather fines up and is not worth fishing.
Once there I could see it was fairly low, there was still enough water in it to have a spin session without too many problems. I stuck with the little Sushi Prawn lure, with it being a shallow diving lure it will be fine here. It wasn't long before I had a brown take the lure, not long after that fish I had another trout in the net. This was more like it, the trout are on the take here which is great to see. The further I worked my way up the little creek the better the fishing became. Over the next four hundred meters of fishing in this creek I caught and released another six well conditioned browns from twelve hook ups and plenty of hit and misses to go with it. The best brown here went 430 grams which was a reasonably good size for this small water at this time of the season. The only downfall half way into the spin session was the small bib on the sushi prawn was broken off by a trout when it played havoc in the net, so it was on with the little Daiwa ghost brown after that. It did it's job well in picking up quite a few of those trout too. I had to give the fishing away due to the creek being too shallow to fish and being in full sun wasn't helping either. In the end the day wasn't all that bad with a total of ten browns being caught and released in two separate waters..
cheers
Adrian
Meander River average, Western Creek great..
- meppstas
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Meander River average, Western Creek great..
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- Broomstick
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Re: Meander River average, Western Creek great..
Lovely snaps/story as always Adrian. Western Creek looks beautiful.
Re: Meander River average, Western Creek great..
The scenery alone would be worth the trip Adrian which you always capture brilliantly the fish are just a bonus.
- meppstas
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Re: Meander River average, Western Creek great..
Thanks guys, that little Western Creek is such a beautiful and peaceful stretch of water.. and it holds a few trout too.. Once the weather warms up and the water level drops low then I don't go near it. It always fished well early & late season when there's a reasonable amount of water in it.. The trout in here originally came up from the Meander River and are now all resident fish.. once the gets warm they'll move to the larger pools in the lower stretches of the creek that are practically inaccessible due to very thick scrub.. There will still be a few in some deeper sections in this area, but they get spooked at the slightest movement, plus they stress so easily in the warmer weather.. so best leave this area alone during that time..
cheers
Adrian
cheers
Adrian
'' Brand Ambassador for Mepps Lures in Australia '' Tackle Tactics, Okuma, Mepps & Platypus lines Pro Team Member
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- Bluefin
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