Meander River, I've had better days

2022 06 22 This beauty fell to the March Brown Bug Overcast, humid conditions and the perfect water level was enough for me to head over to the Meander River for a spin session. It was 6:45 when I hit the water and it wasn't all that long before I had the first trout of the morning take the #0 March Brown Bug spinner, the only problem was it tossed it as fast as it took it. Two casts later I was onto another trout, this little brown stayed on and I had the first fish of the day in the net. It's been around a month since I last fished this stretch of river and this stretch of water I'm fishing didn't give up a single fish, this was a good start to what I normally have here. The river here was perfect for casting and drifting too which was even better as It's one of my favourite ways of spin fishing. There's nothing better than watching the Mepps inline spinner drift with the flow and a trout sitting right up behind it, then it's up to me to get that trout to take the spinner.

Most times all it takes to get the trout to take the spinner is give the Okuma Celilo Finesse ULS trout rod a light twitch or two and nine times out of ten it's fish on. Five minutes after the release of that trout and several meters further upstream I picked up another small brown trout, three minutes after that I had my third trout in the net. This is the best start I've had in this stretch of water all season and I was hoping it would continue too. As I was nearing the top end of this wide medium flowing stretch of water I hooked and lost another trout, a few minutes after that I caught and released the forth brown trout of the session, four trout caught and released from six hookups in thirty five minutes was as good as it gets. The next water I moved into was similar to the one I had just fished, it was a wide medium flowing one, the only difference was that it was much shallower. The opposite side near the river bank the water was a little deeper and that's where I concentrated most of my fishing with the Mepps March Brown spinner.

The left hand side of the river was the better side to fish as well because the cloud cover was starting to disperse and the sun was now hitting the water surface, plus it was deeper and shaded from the heavy foliage along it. The first thing I noticed was there were quite a few small flat waters close to the river bank which were perfect for holding trout, those areas are where I'll concentrate fishing with the spinner. It was on the third cast into a wide flat water at the tail end of this water when I hooked onto solid brown, five seconds was all it took to lose it, one leap from the river it tossed the spinner. With four trout caught and released from seven hookups I was starting to think it's going to be one of those days again. Not all that long after losing that trout and a little further up the river I continued to have several small trout take a look at the spinner before moving off, there weren't any signs of aggression from them at all. I tried a couple other Mepps spinners such as the StoneFly Bug, Aglia Mouche Noire, those spinners didn't attract any fish so I went back to the March Brown spinner.

A little further upstream I spotted a nice narrow flat water that had good foliage cover over it, the cast had to be accurate, I had to lob the lure into it on the first cast, if I didn't and there's a trout nearby that fish will more likely dart off. My cast was spot on, it lobbed exactly where I wanted, as soon as the spinner hit the water it was taken by a very solid trout. it was fish on. This trout was a beauty too, a very decent size brown and one that played hard to get, it took me a couple of minutes before I had it in close enough to ease it into the landing net. As soon as it was hooked I decided not to get the camera out and film it in case I lost it at the last minute like I have done so many times this season. I'm glad I didn't go for the camera either, once in the net out popped the March Brown spinner, I photographed it then weighed it while it was in the net, it went 885 grams after I deducted the 310 gram net weight.

From here on it went a little downhill for me as the trout became few and far between, those that did have a crack at the spinner missed being hooked, with the sun now on the water didn't make it any better either. Finally after one and a half hours I caught my sixth trout, it was a nice solid well conditioned medium size brown that was soon released back into the river. A little further up stream I picked up two more small browns before it all went downhill again. I was having plenty of trout follow the spinner, but with the sun being well overhead was enough to shut them down. I was also feeling the heat as well, the temperature was hitting twenty five degrees now which probably doesn't seem that hot to mainlanders. Twenty five degrees here in Tassie is like thirty two degrees in South Australia where I originally came from twenty two years ago.

I caught the last fish at 10:20 am and was seriously thinking about calling it a day, as usual I thought I still had a chance of catching a few more trout if I fished on for another ten or fifteen minutes. Big mistake that was, in fact I fished on for another forty minutes and had several hookups without landing a fish. At 10:55 am I spat the dummy and called it a day, my day was done and with just eight trout caught and released was pretty disappointing. I know most trout fishers would be quite happy to catch eight trout any time they went fishing, I'm not like that, for the time I spend in the rivers a dozen trout is the minimum number that satisfies me.