Cold water still makes for tough trout fishing 3/9/2018

From the Archives ...

"Angling is an art - Hannah Ledger

and an art worth your learning.."

Presented from Issue 112, October 2014
So said Izaak Walton in the 1600s. It seems that Burnie’s Hannah Ledger has combined angling with art rather well. Hannah is a fish fanatic, outdoor enthusiast and budding, self-taught artist. From as young as she can remember, she has always had crayon in hand, colouring book under arm and as she’s grown as a painter, jars full of paintbrushes and cupboards full of ready-to-go blank canvas’.

A country girl at heart, Hannah was schooled at Yolla District High School, a small ‘farm’ school in the states North West, then went on to Hellyer College where she was given the opportunity to really grow her art skills; And by grow, that meant skipping the classes that would probably have more an impact of getting her somewhere in life, like English and Math to spend every spare minute with the art teacher, painting or drawing.

As typical teenagers do, they make poor decisions- and after being accepted in to one of the countries top art schools, turned down the offer and decided to move to the big island, where she lived for 5 years working in what seemed ‘dead end’ retail.

2018 09 03 The only trout of the session With the Meander River level dropping to 73 cms in the Meander area I decided to head over there for a spin session. Even at 73 cms it's still a little on the high side and until it drops to 65 cms the water is still quite unsafe to wade in several areas along the river. Any way after arriving and then having a forty minute walk to the river I was finally in it flicking a little Mepps #00 gold aglia around in the river. The water temp here was sitting on six degrees which is still on the cold side for trout, hopefully things will turn around over the following weeks ahead. It only took ten minutes before I had a follow from a small brown before it made a dash at the spinner, it had one go at the gold aglia and missed taking it then darted off.

Seeing that fish gave me some encouragement thinking I may be in for a good spin session after all. It was all quiet again after that little fish and it was around forty minutes later when I flicked into a flat water close to the opposite river bank when I had another trout have a crack at the Mepps, this one took the spinner and was hooked. It wasn't a large brown but a nice medium size fish that gave it's all in the fast water before I had in in range to slip the net under it. A couple of photos and this 410 gram brown was back in the river & on it's way.

I still had close on a kilometre of river ahead of me before I was back near the area I had parked the car, with any luck I may still pick up a few more trout before then. Well I didn't, I never saw or had a follow at all over the rest of the river. I couldn't believe how dead this area is at this time of year even with the water being so cold it normally gives up a few trout here. I tried a variety of Mepps spinners and several different hard body lures with seeing a single trout. It was really a disappointing few hours spent in the river today in beautiful surrounds. The water was perfect for using the cast & drift method too, but even that couldn't draw the attention of a trout. Still, it's never going to attract the trout if they're not there.. ..

Adrian (meppstas)