Finally after two very wet, windy days I had a chance to go for my first spin session of the season. This trip was to the Mersey River in the Union Bridge area. I wasn't even thinking of going today even with the fine weather but I thought what the heck go wet a line. Once there I found the river to be running reasonably high and fast with a colour that was like the black coffee I have in the morning. The area I'm fishing today is one that hasn't fished all that well over the past season or two either so I'm not expecting too much this trip. Today is all about getting out and wetting a line for the first time in over three months since the trout season closed. Not that I minded the closure of the season either because it gives me time to get the old body back in some sort of working order for the start of the next one. Each year it gets that little bit tougher on the body for me. With the water still being very cold I thought it was a good time to test out one of the new model Mepps Aglia-e Fluro spinner that I had sent to me to try out on the trout here in Tasmania. I tried several deep long medium flowing stretches of river without a sign of a fish, I was starting to wonder if my trip here was going to be a waste of time. I did try a couple of hard body lures in these long deep runs too before going back to the fluro spinner.
I crossed the river in a fast knee deep stretch of river and pushed my way upstream keeping hard up against the tea trees where the river was at it shallowest. One can always hang on to a tea tree bush because they're strong as ever and rarely break when one needs to grab hold of them to stop falling in from time to time. They've helped to keep me dry on many a trip in a river. I had now worked my way back upstream for close on a kilometer without a single touch or follow from a trout. Things were looking pretty grim until I came to a small back water run, one that I have fished before and one that has given up a fish or two each time I fished it. Well, it only took three casts in the waist deep water before I had my first brown of the season on the line. It wasn't as big fish but one that went 320 grams and in top condition too. Two casts later I was onto another brown, this one was much larger and I took my time with this fish, I didn't want to lose this quality sized brown. It did try to run me into the snags that lined both sides of this narrow back water but with patience and keeping a tight line on this fish it finally tired and was in the net. It has engulfed the spinner, lucky the hook was only in the roof of it's mouth, with the use of the forceps the lure was remove with no damage to the fish. That brown went 700 grams and in top condition, like the other one it was soon back in the back water. It was a little quiet over the next twenty meters before I picked up another nice 340 gram brown that more or less swam straight into the net after a short tussle and a few leaps from the water. I only had some fifteen meters of back water ahead of me and it was running way too fast to be holding a trout for this time of year so I decided to call it a day after some 2-1/2 hours of fishing, one that finished much better than I had anticipated when I first started it. Certainly was great to be back in a river that's for sure...
Adrian Webb
Mepps Agliae catches the first trout of the 2017 18 season
Second brown of the 2017 18 trout season
Back water Mersey River below the Union Bridge
Mersey River below Union Bridge
