Well for the first time this season I was in the Meander River by 5:00 am this morning in what was a beautiful cool morning with plenty of water flowing down the river. The day was supposed to reach 27 degrees, that's the reason for the early start. I was hoping the trout fishing would be better early morning than the later starts I have had on this river. I do prefer the early morning starts on the rivers as it is the best time to be on the water, the trout fishing is usually at it's best then, especially in the Summer months. This river hasn't fished all that well this season and this is another reason I wanted to have the early start on it. There was only one thing I wasn't happy with and that was the water level, the river was running at 70 cms which is a little on the high side where I'm fishing.
Read more: On the water by 5:00 am, trout still few and far between 7/12/2018
Another overcast and windless morning saw me in the Meander River by 7:20 am when I started casting the Mepps Aglia Furia up & across the river. Using the cast & drift method it was on the second cast that I had a follow from a medium size brown. Even though it didn't take the s[inner it was a good sign seeing a trout so early into the spin session. The river height was running at 62 cms which was fine for where I was fishing at this stage, though I would have preferred it to have been five to ten centimetres lower.
Read more: Great start on the trout, before it slowed to a crawl - 19-11-18
It's been a week since my last spin session so today I thought I would give the Meander River another chance of giving up a few trout. The weather when I left was quite reasonable with N/NWesterly breeze at around 15 kph and there was quite a bit of cloud cover too which is how I like it. We had reasonable few showers of rain a few days ago so if the river doesn't give up any fish I new I could always fish Western Creek. I was at the river edge by 9:50 am and it was at the ideal wading height and running very clear, my lure of choice was the Aglia Furia.
As I entered the river I spooked a medium size brown which gave me some confidence there may finally be a few trout around today. It took me thirty five minutes before I had my first solid hit but the fish missed taking the spinner. I fished on upstream for at well over four hundred through some beautiful looking trout water without having a single follow. So far the spin session has been a real low for me with having just the one hit and miss over an hour in the river. I had made my mind up to fish two more stretches of river before heading back to the car going to Western Creek. I felt I had to try something different with the lures so I changed the larger #1 Furia for a small gold #00 Aglia spinner, one that I had placed a black fury sticker on the spinner blade. This is when the spin session turned around for the better, the following stretch of river gave up four medium size browns in nine casts.
I don't know what the odds are but just over two years ago I lost a small Atomic shad40 lure in the Meander River when for some reason the line parted & the lure kept going and lobbed in the middle of the medium flowing river. It was a slow sinking lure & I did go and have a look for it all to no avail, it had more than likely disappeared between the rocks on the river bottom. A week later I was back in the river and while fishing the same stretch of water and decided I'd have another look for the little ghost gill brown lure. I roughly stood in the same area from where I had cast the lure a week earlier and sort of had an idea of where the lure had landed. I then had a guess of where in may have drifted to as it slowly sank. Good thing was that the sun was out this time where as the day I lost it it was a dull overcast day. Any way I headed out to where I thought it may have drifted to.
Read more: Two years apart, what's the odds of it happening again - 30/10/2018
After checking the BOM river heights I saw that the Meander River had dropped 50mms since my last disastrous trip there with just the one trout being caught. I thought with it being lower plus the air and water temp on the rise it was worth another visit. My only worry was the East/North/East winds that were forecast for most of the week, not a good wind direction for fishing. It's okay if it's just a very light breeze but once it picks up one may as well head for home. Today's weather conditions were ideal with it being a dull cool to mild overcast day & the lightest of an Easterly breeze. Being so overcast I didn't hit the river until around 10:00 am and commenced casting the Mepps Aglia Furia around in the clear cool flowing water. It was quite nice to finally be fishing the river at the perfect wading height for a change..
Seeing as the Meander River level had dropped to 62 cms on the BOM river levels chart I thought it was worth heading there to see if the trout are out and about. The previous two trips here when the river was running at 77 cms to 80 cms weren't all that flash with just one brown being caught on the first trip and four on the second. Today I'm fishing a different stretch of river, so I'm hoping for a few trout to be around seeing as the day is warm and the water temp should be around 10-11 degrees which is 6-7 degrees better to what it was.. No sooner had I arrived when the wind picked up and started blowing a gale, this wasn't forecast for later in the afternoon (3:00pm) not at 10:00 am.
With the Meander River level dropping to 73 cms in the Meander area I decided to head over there for a spin session. Even at 73 cms it's still a little on the high side and until it drops to 65 cms the water is still quite unsafe to wade in several areas along the river. Any way after arriving and then having a forty minute walk to the river I was finally in it flicking a little Mepps #00 gold aglia around in the river. The water temp here was sitting on six degrees which is still on the cold side for trout, hopefully things will turn around over the following weeks ahead. It only took ten minutes before I had a follow from a small brown before it made a dash at the spinner, it had one go at the gold aglia and missed taking it then darted off.
Read more: Cold water still makes for tough trout fishing 3/9/2018
Another beautiful day was forecast so I headed over to the Meander River again today for a spin session in the hope of catching a few more trout. I forgot to check the river level on the BOM site before I left and after a drive through heavy fog I finally arrived at the Meander only to find it was running at the same height as my last trip here. Right away I knew I was in for a tough few hours in the river with so much water coming down. I decided to drive to another area that meant for a long walk to the river, but I didn't have to cross it, I could fish it from the side that I entered the river. There are a couple of deep stretches of water that I can bypass quite easily, the rest of it is mainly fast water with a few medium runs thrown in the mix... After a forty minute walk I reached my entry point and started casting the Rapala brown trout lure around without all that much success over the first couple of hundred meters.
Read more: High river level still making it tough for spin fishing - 23/4/2018
Another beautiful day had me heading over to the Meander River for a spin session, one that didn't last all that long. Why it didn't last all that long was when I arrived there I found the water level was pretty high and the area I was to fish wasn't looking all that safe for wading. Seeing how well I know the river here I still thought it may be worth having a go to see if I could still catch a trout or two. The hardest part was crossing the above waist deep water, a couple of times I thought of turning back but knowing it was only going to get shallower I kept going.. Where I crossed wasn't really fast water but it was deep and had quite a bit of force in the flow and that was my main concern at the time... Once I had reached the other side and using a brown trout F3 Rapala I slowly fished my way upstream.
Read more: Meander running too high and fast today - 20/4/2018
Met up with good friend Clint for a spin session on the Meander River this morning and I'm hoping to catch the three trout required to reach the 600th trout, a target that I set myself at the start of the 2017/18 trout season. With nice warm weather conditions and the river running some five inches higher than my previous trip to the river we decided to fish from well below the Chestnut Road bridge and work our way back upstream to it. Once there I started off with the bloody tiger prawn coloured Greedy Guts lure and Clint also had a lure of a similar colour with his set up. I told Clint to have a few casts into a large flat water at the tail end of the stretch of river we were starting from, it's always given up a trout or two on my previous trips here. I think it was on his second or third cast when he was onto a nice solid brown that gave him a good start to the spin session.
After having a doctors appointment this morning I had a pretty late start on the Meander River in what was beautiful fishing conditions and the river level had dropped which made it even better. I received a few new Austackle lures that I picked up for half price from MO-Tackle last week and they arrived this morning so I'm itching to give them a workout. I was in the river by 11:10 am and started off using the ''Wolf '' 50 mm hard body lure which has a narrow body and is practically the same patten as the Daiwa ghost brown one that I use. It took me around fifteen minutes before I had my first follow from a medium size brown and that's as far as it went, just a follow.
Read more: New lure catches a few browns in the Meander - 6/4/2018
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and an art worth your learning.."
Presented from Issue 112, October 2014
So said Izaak Walton in the 1600s. It seems that Burnie’s Hannah Ledger has combined angling with art rather well. Hannah is a fish fanatic, outdoor enthusiast and budding, self-taught artist. From as young as she can remember, she has always had crayon in hand, colouring book under arm and as she’s grown as a painter, jars full of paintbrushes and cupboards full of ready-to-go blank canvas’.
A country girl at heart, Hannah was schooled at Yolla District High School, a small ‘farm’ school in the states North West, then went on to Hellyer College where she was given the opportunity to really grow her art skills; And by grow, that meant skipping the classes that would probably have more an impact of getting her somewhere in life, like English and Math to spend every spare minute with the art teacher, painting or drawing.
As typical teenagers do, they make poor decisions- and after being accepted in to one of the countries top art schools, turned down the offer and decided to move to the big island, where she lived for 5 years working in what seemed ‘dead end’ retail.
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