Merseylea Report 18/3/2014

CATCH  RATE  A  LITTLE  BETTER  TODAY 
With a forecast for strong West to Sth Westerly winds today I headed over to Merseylea for a mid afternoon session on the Mersey River. On leaving Sheffield at 2.20pm the wind had really picked up and I knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge on the water today for accurate casting. At one stage I was thinking about not even going given the strength of it and knowing how difficult it can make the fishing. Then I thought what the heck, it's still good  practice casting in these conditions. 
    When I arrived at Merseylea didn't seem all that bad and so I quickly slipped into the waders and headed off some 1.2kms downstream to my entry point into the river. I started off with a Rapala F3 brown trout patten and on the second cast I had a nice (320gm) rainbow on the line and it was soon into the net. Another cast and I had another hook up but lost it after the medium size brown made it's one and only leap from the river. 
    The wind had now strengthened quite a lot and was blowing from behind me which wasn't all that bad. I would sooner have it from that direction than coming face on that's for sure, plus it was putting a nice heavy ripple on the water surface. After several more casts as I slowly worked my way upstream all I  managed was one follow, and so I decided it was time to change to the ever reliable Mepps black fury spinner. It was on with the copper blade black fury and I was straight into a fish on the first cast with it. This wasn't a big trout but at least I knew the change of lure was the right choice. Over the next thirty meters I did have a couple of follows and light nudges on the spinner but nothing aggressive, so it was now time for another change of lure. 
    It was on with a black bladed black fury and it wasn't too long before I was right into a brown that really hit hard and fast. Not a big fish either, but one that went 420gms. The stretch of river that I was now fishing was a nice one hundred meter run of fast water and it looked very fishing too.  This stretch of river did give up some fish too, as I caught and released  five browns and lost three others and so it was as good as it looked. One of the browns that snapped up the black fury is one of the smallest that I have ever taken on a spinner too. It would have been lucky to have been over 100 gms in weight. 
    There was one more small section of fast water ahead of me that I was going to fish before calling an end to my session. It nearly gave up a nice ( around 700gm) brown that I had on for around a minute before I lost it just as I was about to slip the net under it. I thought I may lose it as I could see that it was only hooked in the front lip and was surprised it stayed on as long as it did. At the end of the day it finished up being a good decision to take the punt and go to Merseylea and tough it out. It did add a little more to my season total as well, which was a bonus.                                                             

Please note:  All fish are caught and released.