After lunch I thought I would take the trout gear and head on over to Merseylea in the hope I may finally get to wet a line in it for the first time this season. Once there I could see it was still running very high and there was no way I would be hopping in for a wade. Still on with the waders etc and off I went walking down through the paddocks to where I knew there would be some nice back water that I could hop in and wade. After a brief fifteen minute walk I was soon at the bottom end of it where it flowed back into the Mersey River. There was plenty of water running down it too and I had that feeling there would be a few trout holding in a few stretches of it as well. Just before I entered the back water I flicked the little Muzza's hard body into a small flat piece of water close to the river bank, this type of water quite will often have a fish in it. It was on the second cast when I had a nice solid brown take the lure. It headed straight out into the main flow and then off downstream for some thirty meters before I managed to turn it then slowly lead it in towards the river bank. With the river running so fast even a small brown is going to peel line off the reel once it enters the main flow. Any way, after a brief tussle I soon had this nice solid brown in the landing net. As always, after quick photo it was soon back in the river. That fish went 430gms.

Now I'm into the back water working my way up stream, it wasn't easy going as there was quite a good amount of water flowing down it. It wasn't all that long when I had a take from a nice brown, it gave a couple of head shakes and spat the little hard body lure. Being in such a tight narrow area I decided to change to a small (1.5 gm) Mepps Comet gold blade spinner with red dots to see how that would go. It did well too, it only took three casts and I had a good size brown hit it hard and fast. This fish seemed to come from nowhere, but like before, this fish made just the one leap from the small back water and spat the spinner. This happened again in the next small run as well so it was another change of lure. This time I went with the F-3 Rapala rainbow pattern. Four casts with this lure and I was onto another brown, this one stayed on all the way into the net. A few more casts later and I had another take, this fish was only lipped and was soon gone when it made a quick run down past me.
I had reached the top end of this back water and was now at the point where the main river was spilling into it. There was a good shallow run along the edge of the main river, it wasn't all that fast either due to it being on the bend of the river. It did have a nice flat area of water on it as well so it was well worth working a lure through it. The Rapala did draw the attention of a trout, but it wouldn't take it. It was then I changed to a (2.5 gm) Aglia Fluoro spinner thinking that the brighter colour just may be what is needed to stir up a trout. It worked, I had two hook ups with this spinner from not all that many casts, but lost both fish. In fact the second one that was hooked made a run out into the fast flow and really pulled hard, I just couldn't get this fish to turn at all. I felt one hard head shake then it was gone. I decided to head on home now, I couldn't fish any where else in this area because of the limited access due to the flood damage. When I went to clip the spinner onto the rod eyelet I notice one of the three hooks of the treble was missing, that fish had broken it off. In all it was a good session given the short time spent here today, just over an hours fishing and having seven hook ups wasn't all that bad really.

Adrian (meppstas)

back water mersey river

no margin for error here

solid brown caught here mersey river back water

mersey river brown taken on muzzas lure

nice back water brown trout mersey river