2020 06 10 Mepps and wild brown troutWith fine weather this morning with rain forecast for later this afternoon I thought I would get a spin session in before the rain arrived. This trip was to the upper Mersey River, an area on private property and one I haven't fished for a couple of months. The reason I haven't fished here all that often this trout season is because it's a rough & tough area to get into, plus the river itself has to be one of the toughest stretches of water to fish. The rocky river bottom is always covered in a brown slime and so slippery under foot at times it's near impossible to stay upright, not only that the rocks roll underfoot. Another problem here is the water weed growth that has spread along the river making spin fishing near in possible in most stretches of water. Another reason I headed here was that I wanted to give the tannin waters a rest as well as a change of scenery, another reason for heading to the upper Mersey. It was close to 9:20 am when I arrived & parked the car on a narrow bush track on private property, then after a lot bush bashing followed by a long walk I was at the river by around 10:00am. The river was running a little higher than I had expected and still at a safe wading depth, the water was a light tannin colour, the river bottom was it's normal poor condition as I stated earlier.

2020 05 05 Another well conditioed wild brown troutIt was back to the Meander fast waters again this morning for another spin session to see if I can add a few more trout to my season's tally of 370 trout. I wasn't intending to fish the fast waters today mainly because of the right hip but then decided what the heck get in there and see how you go, if fishing there aggravates it then I'll get out and head to the slower flowing waters. The conditions were quite overcast and a cool six degrees when I hit the clear flowing river at 10:10am, the water temp was sitting on ten degrees and it was cold on the legs too. I started the session off with a small #00 White Miller Bug spinner, it's not a colour I would normally start off using but I wanted to see how it would perform in the dull conditions and clear water. Well, not a lot happened for around fifteen minutes or so before a cast directly upstream into a flat water a small brown took it. Two head shakes from that little brown and it was gone, it tossed the White Miller as quick as it took it.

2020 04 11 Solid brown that fell to a small hard body headAfter missing out not having a spin session yesterday, this afternoon I decided to head back to the fast waters of the Meander River. It was 2:25pm when I hit the water in what was perfect weather conditions with a light breeze and patches of scattered cloud.

The river level was a little lower than my last trip here, it was still running nice and clear, lure of choice for starters was the #1 Stone Fly Bug spinner. The first area I fished was a large wide deep stretch of medium flowing water, it was here I had a follow from a nice brown.

2014 03 15 A quality 1.04 kg wild brown troutAfter having such a great fast water spin session a few days ago I headed back to the Meander to have another crack at getting a double figure catch. This time it was a mid morning start, a morning that had clear skies, light breeze and a temperature of 22 degrees later in the day.

It was 9:45 am when I hit the river above the Chestnut Road Bridge to fish a long nice stretch of fast water, the first thing I noticed was green algae covering the most of the river bottom. Soon as I had seen that I knew then and there it wasn't going to be a good day on the trout here. I did fish around four hundred meters of river without seeing a trout so headed back to the car and drove to the fast waters in the upper Meander River.

2014 03 14 Another fast water wild brown troutThe weather today was supposed to be fine and windy with rain due later in the day, well it was 2:00pm and the sky was still clear, there was hardly any wind blowing so I headed off for a spin session. This trip was to the upper reaches of the Meander River to fish the fast water, a long stretch of water that holds quite a few trout at this time of the year. It was 3:40 PM when I hit the river that was running clear and in full sun which didn't bother me all that much, as the day goes on it will be shaded by the trees and foliage that line both sides of the river.

2020 02 24 Wild brown trout Leven RiverSeeing as we had some reasonable rainfall in the highland areas I checked the river heights of the Leven River last night and saw it has risen to a reasonable wading height so thought a trip to it may be worthwhile. It was a late afternoon spin session as I had several things to do in the morning and with a forecast of a light Nth Easterly wind 7-11 kph wasn't all that bad, even though I'm not a lover of fishing with the breeze from that direction. Before I left home I checked the river height again to find it running at 392 mega litres which was a little on high side but which was a reasonably safe wading height, had it been above the 400 mega litres I would not have gone.

2020 02 22 Stone fly bug spinner did the job on this troutSeeing as it's been around ten or eleven weeks since I've fished the upper Mersey River I thought today would be the ideal day to do it with light winds & overcast conditions forecast. Getting to the river where I'll be fishing is one that's as tough as it can get, it requires bushing bashing though dense scrub and steep hills. It's also an area than runs hot and cold with the trout fishing too, they're either on in big numbers or they're few and far between. I'm hoping it's going to be a day when the trout are out and about and full of aggression, I'm not fussed about the size as long as they are in big numbers over the one and a half kilometres of river I'll be fishing.

2020 02 11 Second best fish of the session 515gmsA cool morning with light drizzle, what a top day to head of for a spin session, yes you guessed it I was on my way to the Meander River again to have another spin session in the fast water. When I arrived (7;35am) the drizzle had gone but it was still quite cool with heavy cloud cover which made it near impossible to see the river bottom. On heavy overcast days the cloud cover acts like a mirror on the water and polarised sunglasses don't work either, they're okay in close to the river bank with the cover of foliage but that's as far as it goes. Any way I started the morning off using a copper #00 Aglia Mouche Noire and picked up a small brown mid stream in the first five minutes, just the start I was wanted. The river was down a little since my last trip here six days ago which was good as it meant the trout should be well spread out across the river.

2020 02 03 Small Mersey River wild rainbow trout WeegenaCalm humid conditions today that were ideal for trout fishing saw me head up to Weegena to chase the trout in the fast waters of the Mersey River. I wasn't in a rush to get there seeing it was overcast and humid, it was 8:10 am when I arrived at Weegena. From where I parked the car I had a fifteen minute walk to the fast water I was going to fish, on the way I bypassed a long wide slow flowing stretch of river that had a lot of trout surface feeding in it. There were black spinners hovering above the water surface that had quite a few trout fired up as they were leaping from the river trying to grab a few.

2020 01 20 Small trout with a beaded trout fly in its top jawFinally the weather arrived that I've been wanting for quite some time now, a day with light drizzle and very humid conditions were here at last. Even though I was up at 5:00 am I was a little slow of the mark before heading off to the Meander River. By the time I put a dozen heat patches on the old body & loosened up it was 6:10 am when I was in the '' Trout Stalker 2 '' and on my way to the river.

Today my plan was to head to the fast water runs, one of the toughest stretches of water one can fish in the upper reaches of the river. It's a very long rocky fast water that tests the best of any river fisher, a fast water full of very slippery rocks/boulders that has sent many trout fisho's home much earlier than they would have liked. As tough as it is on the body the upper Meander River fast water is at the top of my favorites list to chase brown trout. I was in the river by 7:05 am and found it was running a little higher than I preferred, this meant it was going to be that much harder work fishing my way upstream.

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