2017 12 25 Small wild rainbow troutWith nothing on this morning and being Christmas Day I new where ever I fished I'd more than likely have the rivers all to myself. So I headed off to the Mersey River for a spin session in what was beautiful calm conditions and with the sun already well up I didn't hit the river until 7:15 am. The river was like a sheet of glass and there were quite a few trout already on the rise surface feeding on midges. Seeing the trout surface feeding I knew I was in for another tough few hours chasing the brown trout this morning.

I should have been here at 5:30 am so now I'm hoping there maybe a rainbow or two about that will save the day for me as they have done so often before. I started the off with a rainbow Rapala F3 and had a follow from a small non aggressive brown and that was it for at least ten minutes before I changed to the Daiwa ghost brown hard body. Same thing happened with that lure too, just the one follow from another small to medium size brown. So thirty minutes into the session and I haven't had a hit at all. 

It was time for another change of lure, I went for a Rapala brown trout lure and flicked it just ahead of a surface feeding brown. No sooner had the lure hit the water the brown took it even before I had turned the reel handle. After a few good runs, leaps and head shakes I had this 460 gram brown in the net. I'm not sure if I fluked this trout or whether he was just one very aggressive brown. This did give me some hope of maybe catching a few browns with a bit of luck..

As I slowly fished my way upstream not catching anything I did enjoy watching several trout surface feeding with the odd one leaping from the river trying to grab a small damsel fly. As frustrating as it was to see them surface feeding it was still a nice time to be in the river watching this happen.
Finally a half hour after catching the brown I had a small rainbow take the Rapala and it stayed on all the way to the net. From here on it was really quiet, even the trout had stopped surface feeding in most of the wide slow flowing waters. I took the Rapala off and went back to the gold Aglia and started fishing the small fast water runs. It turned out to be a good decision too as I picked up four more rainbows from five hook ups by the time

I had fished the last fast water run. The wind had picked up plus it was getting pretty warm and with a walk of over one and a half kilometers back to the car I called it a day. Not a day that I was overly happy with I was still lucky enough to catch and release six trout on the day which probably wasn't all that bad after all.

Adrian Webb


 

Fast water stretch Mersey River

2017 12 25 Fast water stretch Mersey River

 

Small rainbow caught here Mersey River

2017 12 25 Small rainbow caught here Mersey River

 

Close to the end of the session

2017 12 25 Close to the end of the session

 

Small wild rainbow trout

2017 12 25 Small wild rainbow trout

 

Taking a breather in the warm conditions

2017 12 25 Taking a breather in the warm conditions