SMALL REWARD FOR A LOT OF HARD WORK  4/2/2013

Another 3 hours were spent on the Meander River this afternoon fishing in sunshine and a north easterly for most of it, not my favourite type of condition to fish in. Still there were several areas that had shade on it thanks to the many Eucalypts along the river and this was where the fish were holding. The river seemed a little higher today which was a good sign, because the last trip here it was way too low. Hydro must be releasing more water for irrigation purposes and I was hoping this may give the river a much needed lift for fishing.

Started off in an area much further up than my last trip here and it was a stretch of river that I hadn't fished before, so I was hoping it was going to produce a few fish. So I started of with the usual black Aglia spinner that has been so successful on most of my past trips here and began to spin my way upstream working every bit of water. After spinning my way up the river for around 25 minutes all I could manage was three follows, this was not a good sign! The trout were just sitting about 50 mms back from the spinner and I tried every trick in the book to get them to strike to no avail. Slow retrieves and letting the spinner drift with the flow, a little twitch and then let the spinner drop a little before slowly winding again. Still couldn't get them to have a whack at the lure. It was now time to try another type of spinner and this time I changed to a March Brown Bug spinner in the hope this may entice them into taking the lure..

So when I moved into the next stretch of fast water I flicked the Bug spinner across to the opposite bank and into a small side pocket of water that I thought should be holding a fish. How right I was as no sooner had the spinner hit the water and after one turn of the reel it was fish on, not a big fish but at least it was a fish. Wasn't too long before I had this little brown (260 gms ) landed and then quickly released. After several more casts through this small bit of fast water without a hit, it was then on to the next section of river.

This next stretch of water had quite a few good pockets in it that I thought would hold trout and I did manage to pick up two more small browns here ( one taken on the fly dropper ), these were only around 240 gms plus I also hooked and lost one other around the same size. I had now been in the river for nearly one and a half hours now and with only three browns landed I knew it was looking to be a small reward for a lot of hard work today. But it was still enjoyable being here in a great river with beautiful surrounds I couldn't really ask for more than this, except maybe a few more fish! At least the change of spinner worked so I was still in with a chance of picking up a few more hopefully. Kept on working my way upstream for another hour and finished up catching and releasing another four small browns with the best going 270 grams. Also hooked and lost six others in that time too, and these were not big fish either. So another few hours on the Meander River did prove to be worth while once again, but one still had to work every bit of the river for success at days end even if the fish were small..

River : Meander.. Browns : 7 (all released 270gms )
Cheers Adrian Webb