What a great day to be back at the office
By Adrian Webb
Well with daylight saving and Easter out of the way it was back to work for me today. What a great day is was to be back at the office with no wind, clear skies and crisp air. Couldn't have been a better day to go back at all.. This morning I had to travel to one of my other offices some 45 kms from Sheffield. Still it was a beautiful morning for a drive in the country side and it helps to get the brain into gear for the work ahead of me. My office today was the Meander River.. No better place to start off my first day back after a brief break.
On my arrival I noticed the river was running fairly high and fast which meant it was going to be a tough day at work for sure. I mean having to push my way upstream into a strong flow of water, very tiring indeed for the first day back. But, the work has to be done and I'm just the bloke for the job. I started off with the little black fury as I normally do, mainly because it was the spinner still attached from my last trip to the Mersey River. When I entered the river it was just above waist high so it meant crossing to the other side. Fishing the rivers as many times as I have you get to know every thing about each and every river one fishes. Where there are highs and lows on the river bottom, where to and where not to cross etc. So after pushing my way across to the opposite side of the river which was much shallower (knee deep & less) than where I entered it. I started casting directly upstream to work the river no more than two meters from the river bank. I knew that it's going to be the only place the trout will be holding with such a strong flow today. It's just to high and fast any further out than this to be holding trout.
It took around five minutes before I had my first brown take the spinner. It was only a small (240gm) brown, but it's the start I was hoping for. The one thing I did noticed was how cold the water was. A quick reading of the digital temp gauge showed me why, it was 10.3 degrees 150mms under the surface. Still I'm here to work, can't be worrying about a bit of cold water. It took close on thirty minutes before I finally picked up my second brown for the morning, this too was a small (270gm) brown. Beggars can't be choosy, two from two is still okay. I had only moved some thirty meters upstream and I had number three in the net. A much bigger brown that went 420gms. Now that's more the size I like to catch in a river. Still, I would prefer to catch bigger fish any day.
I had now worked my way close on 500 meters upstream for just the three browns. Even though it's been a tough start to the day it couldn't have been a better place to have the office. I keep on casting and working the shallows along the river bank and picked up another two solid browns with the best one going 480gms. This fish was taken within 400mms from the bank in just 120mms of water. The last 300 meters of river only gave up one more brown, this too was a solid fish that went 390gms. I had now been in the river for two and a half hours when I called it a day. One I was happy with, six browns from just the six hook ups made for a good day back at the office.
Tomorrow I don't have to be at the office until 2.00pm, will just plod around the house for a while, rest up and work on my plan of attack for the trout... Ho.. Hum!!