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Shot off to Merseylea around 10.30am this morning armed with a kids butterfly net as I was going after grasshoppers and not trout for a change. It was very overcast and dull with rain not that far away going by the conditions.  Once at Merseylea I headed off through the tall grassy paddocks with net in hand and  started swishing it through the grass. Started to get a few but they weren't that big which was a little disappointing as there were much bigger ones here a few days ago. With it being cooler and overcast probably didn't help either. I did manage a couple of large ones and around thirty small hoppers, plus I picked up a few nice big black crickets. Trout just love these big black crickets too, and so they'll be the first ones to go on the hook. 

    I now had all the bait I needed for Sunday and seeing as I was here at Merseylea and the Mersey River was right next to where I had parked the "'Trout Stalker 2'" and I just happened to have a rod and waders etc in the car, I thought what the heck, let's go fishing!! It was only to be a short stint as I could sense the rain was less than a couple of hours away. There was hardly any breeze and the river was nice and glassy as I slowly worked my way upstream casting to the opposite bank and then just slowly retrieving the lure back across the slow flowing Mersey River. Well, the first fifty metres didn't give a yelp much like the other day, but at the top end I hooked a rainbow. This fish tossed the Rapala as quick as it hit it. It took around another fifteen minutes and probably fifty or more casts before I had a medium brown take the lure. Two leaps later it too was gone, tossed the lure!  

     I noticed a small shallow back water on the right hand side that had quite a lot of cover along both sides of it and I wasn't going to bypass this that's for sure. I never bypass any back water sections of any river as ninety percent of the time they're holding a fish or two. First cast into a very short and shallow (100mms deep) run I was on.  A nice little (320gm) brown just smashed the lure and it stayed on to the end. And that's why I never bypass any back water. Moved onto the next small well covered run where an accurate cast would be needed to put the lure into a tight spot (25feet) ahead of me on the right hand side. Well it was the perfect cast as I did drop it right where I wanted it to lob and with only two turns of the reel I was onto a better and bigger (460gm) brown this time. First thing it did was to head towards the debris to the right hand side, but I managed to hold it out and slowly bring it to the net. Another cast into the same area once more saw another but smaller brown have a whack at the lure as well. This one didn't get hooked though. So this small twenty meter back water was well worth fishing as are most back waters that many fishers would and do bypass.

     I was now back into the main stream once more and it was starting to spit with rain and so I thought I will just fish this next slow forty meter run before ending today's short stint on the Mersey. Over the forty meters I did have another two hook ups for just the one small (340gm) brown landed. So, in all it was a fairly quick and good session that lasted close on and hour and fifteen minutes for six hook ups and three browns caught and released. I was reasonably happy with that for the time I was in the river. As I arrived back home the rain had arrived and set in and is still raining as I'm finishing this article at 4.00pm.

Cheers

Adrian