Meander River BROWNS  VERY  FEW  AND  FAR  BETWEEN  TODAY 6/3/2014

With the forecast being for fine and mild conditions I thought it worth while to head over to the Meander River this morning for a few hours. I wasn't happy with the wind direction that came with the forecast though, South East to Easterly winds. I don't normally do too well with the wind from any easterly direction but I still thought it would be nice to have a session in the Meander any way.
     Arrived at the river at 9.00am and was soon in it and flicking a rainbow pattern Rapala about and it wasn't that long before I had my first fish on. A nice medium brown of around 400 gms that tossed the lure just as I was about to slip the net under it. I wasn't over upset as I was releasing what ever I caught again today any way. This time of year I rarely keep any fish as it's only two months before the season closes and they're starting to produce eggs sacks in them. So by keeping any then it just depletes the future of fish stocks  increasing in our rivers.
     Three casts later and I had another brown (330gms) on and this time it fish stayed on until the end, quick photo and it was on it's way. Now this is how I was hoping the day would be getting into a fish or two at the start of a session as it could make for a good day on the river. Well it didn't stay the way it started I'm afraid to say, as it took another hour before I had my next fish on. It was worth the wait as this was a nice solid brown (490gms) and in top condition as well. As soon as it was in the net the lure popped from it's mouth, how lucky was that I thought as one more jump and it would probably have tossed it.
    Over the next three hundred meters I had two more hook ups in which I lost one brown and landed  the other, I did have several follows and that was enough to keep me going on for a bit longer. The wind had picked up from the East over the last half an hour which wasn't in my favour either and the fish were not aggressive at all. To get the two hook ups I really had to work the Rapala with a fast, then slow retrieve and a light jerk of the rod and stop the retrieve for a second or two. This was the only way I could get them to attack the lure now. I still had another couple of hundred meters of reasonable water ahead of me to work before I was going to move on to another section of river some kilometre or so upstream. It was worth the effort to push on and fish it too as I did catch and release one more (470gm) brown and hooked and lost three others. I wasn't too happy about losing the fish but at least I had hooked a few more before making the move upstream. 
    The reason I was making the move is that the stretch of river ahead of me has to be the toughest and roughest kilometre of river to fish and I just wasn't up to it today. Besides I had now been in the river for close on three hours as well. The area I moved to was a nice wide and easy to wade stretch of river that is much easier on the body. I fished this stretch for an hour and could only manage two follows and it was then I decided enough was enough and called it a day at 1.30pm. As tough a day that it was in catching the browns, it was still worth the trip to the very scenic Meander River. Had the wind been from the South West it may have been a much better catch rate, who knows??
Cheers Adrian