Mersey River 11/10/2013

Given that we were finally gifted with a fine and warmer day and the fact that it hasn't rained in four or five days I decided to give the Mersey River a spin. So after lunch I headed off to the Union Bridge near Mole Creek in pretty good conditions apart from a strong westerly breeze.
The river was medium height and running reasonably clear and it looked fishy too. This is my first trip since the 13th of September and I thought I will probably be a little rusty with my casting as well as my fitness in wading this tough area of river. It all started off okay as the water depth was around the knees which is good plus the rocky river bed wasn't that slimy either and it was very clean.
No silt, weeds or debris covering the river bed which was good, so the floods had finally done their job at last. I had the stumbles for a short time, but after around fifteen minutes I was much steadier on my feet, bit like getting the sea legs back when boating in the old days. Anyway I soldiered  on working both sides of the river with a bigger than usual spinner, it was a #1 (3.5gm) Mepps Black Fury  gold blade lure. The reason for this was because of the faster flow and more depth in the river than normal.
I was finding the flow against the legs was a lot harder than I expected and was making it very tough going over most sections of the river. A few sections were above knee depth and it was really tough working my way upstream and I was pretty glad the rocky bottom didn't have the slime in it too. I didn't have any trouble lobbing the spinner exactly where I wanted it so at least I wasn't rusty in that department today anyway. The biggest problem was that there was not a sign of a fish yet, and this continued on over every section of river for the whole two and a half hours of working every nook and cranny in it.
I went there today with pretty high expectations too, and this was a bit of a disappointment that there was none to be seen over approx 1.5 kms of river. This area above the bridge hasn't fished that well for a couple of  trips now and looks like it may not fire up again this season either. Hopefully I'm wrong, but it doesn't look good. This stretch of river above the bridge used to be very reliable and I used to average 15 fish here, so you can see what I mean by stating it may not fish well again this season.
It was still good to finally get back into a river after a long layoff because of the poor weather that we've had to put up with since the start of the season. The ol" body was certainly feeling the effects at the end of the spin session today that's for sure, if the conditions stay reasonable and the rivers can drop a little more then it will soon get back to normal touch wood!!
Cheers
Adrian