Rainbows a Plenty in the Mersey
Seeing that the day was nice and fine with just a light Nth Easterly I headed on over to the Mersey River at 5.00pm for a late session. It wasn't worth going any earlier as it was to bright plus the sun was still on the water, so by around 5.00pm there is usually plenty of shade on the river from the masses of willows that line the banks.
The river was a little lower than my last trip and it was reasonably clear so I decided I would only fish the fast water sections today. Stuck with the little copper black fury and it was fish on with the second cast. It was a small to medium (300gm) size rainbow that took the spinner with a rush, another great start to a session. A few more casts over this same small fast water didn't result in any more takes and so it was on the the next small run. Six casts later I had caught and released another two browns all close to the same size as the first fish.
This was really good as both fast water runs have given up fish which was better than expected. The next stretch of fast water is one that always produces a couple of fish and it didn't let me down either as I managed four more hook ups for three rainbows landed. So that's made it six rainbows in the first three fast water runs and it doesn't get any better that that. But I kept on thinking to myself, were are the brown trout? There hasn't been a sign of a brown at all.
Anyway it didn't really bother me too much especially while the rainbows were hitting the copper black fury. I now had a walk of some 500 meters to the next fast water section and this one runs for some 200 meters or so. I decided to give a F-3 rainbow Rapala a go at the base of this run to see if I could pick up a brown. It wasn't to be as the very first cast I had another rainbow take the lure, this one was a little larger than the others but only by 50gms. Another cast into the same area and it was fish on again, another rainbow had taken the Rapala. But after several leaps from the river it was gone and so was the rainbow Rapala. Some how with it's twisting and turning it had opened the small barrel snap swivel and the lure had slipped off. So it was back to the copper black fury once more.
This is just unreal, so many rainbows caught in the Mersey River without a brown taken. I have never caught this many rainbows with at least one or two browns being taken in between them. I kept on flicking the spinner across the fast water and let it drift with the flow until I felt the weight of the fish on it once before lifting the rod tip and setting the hooks. I hooked another six rainbows and landed three of them and still no browns. Well with only some fifteen meters of fast water left in this run I finally picked up a small 270gm brown. After having some fifteen hook ups and all rainbow trout I had my first brown for the afternoon session. It was now 7.55pm and time to call it a day, one that I won't forget for some time either. With ten rainbows and one brown caught and released in just under three hours, I'm very happy with that result for sure. I'll be checking the IFS site to see if there has been a stocking of rainbows into the Mersey River over the past few weeks. If there hasn't then this is a good sign as they are then all wild rainbows from natural spawning.
Cheers
Adrian
