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Sea runners - Early Season Excitement - Christopher Bassano

Presented from Issue 100
Considering the world class quality of our sea trout fishery, these fish are not sought after by enough anglers. Sea runners live in the salt water and run up our estuaries and rivers from the start of August to the middle of November. At this time of the year, they are here to eat the many species of fish that are either running up the rivers to spawn or are living in and around the estuary systems. Trout, both sea run and resident (Slob Trout) feed heavily on these small fish which darken in colouration as they move further into fresh water reaches.

The majority of these predatory fish are brown trout with rainbows making up a very small percentage of the catch. They can be found all around the state but it would be fair to say that the east coast is the least prolific of all the areas. They still run up such rivers as the Georges (and many others) but their numbers along with the quality of the fishing elsewhere make it difficult to recommend the area above the larger northern, southern and western rivers.

2018 04 07 Pontoon 21 Greedy Guts bloody tiger prawn Will I or wont I go fishing, that was what was going on in my head this morning. In the end I did go and headed over to Merseylea for a spin session. It was only going to be a short one as I had several things to do at home that I haven't got around to lately. When I arrive at the river I was surprised not to see any cars parked near the bridge seeing as it was quite a nice morning to be on a river. After a twenty minute walk through a few paddocks and a dried up back water I was at my starting point only to find it wasn't the same here any more. There has been quite a lot of work done along the river and my fast water run I loved to fish was now a wide deep stretch of water. Any way I put on a F3 rainbow Rapala lure and started casting to the opposite river bank while slowly retrieving the lure at the same time letting it go with the flow. After the forth of fifth cast & retrieve I had a follow from an interested trout that followed the lure right up to where I lifted the lure from the water. That's where it ended, it turned and slowly moved away. Onto the next stretch of water, this one was more to my liking as it hadn't had a lot of work done to it. It had been made a little deeper but two thirds of it was still okay for wading my way up the river. Before I entered this stretch of water I had a change of lure, it was the Daiwa ghost brown lure I went for.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 23 April 2018; Hits: 110

2018 03 28 Tannin waters brown 6012 After having some decent rainfall over the past couple of days I thought I would try one on the small tannin waters above Weegena. I was hoping it had enough flow in it to be good enough to fish, once there I found it was flowing quite nice and it was good enough to have a spin session in it. I was using the gold Aglia today as it always works well in most of the tannin waters I fish. It was a little on the quite side over the first fifty meters or so before I had a small brown take the lure only to see it toss it once it leapt from the river.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 11 April 2018; Hits: 332

2018 03 18 Mersey River closeup After two days of gale force winds the weather turned around for the better today, it was around 11:30 am when the wind eased off to a SSE at 16 kph which was enough to have me heading off to the upper reaches of the Mersey for a spin session. I had lunch first before I left and arrived at the river at 1:10 PM, I had a fairly decent walk to where I was going to start the spin session. It was 1:55 PM when I was finally in the river and started flicking the little Mepps #00 gold Aglia around amongst the fast water that flowed between the rocks. It was 2:01 PM when I had my first brown in the net, that was followed with another two browns caught and released in quick time too.

The second brown was caught and in the net at 2:04 PM and the third one was in the net at 2:13 PM, how I know that is by the time that's set by the camera when a photo is taken. So with three trout caught and released in twelve minutes I couldn't have had a better start to the session.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 05 April 2018; Hits: 410

Mersey River

2018 01 13 Ghost brown and Mersey Rainbow head The weather was fine when I left home this morning for a spin session on the Mersey River at Weegena even though the forecast was for rain & thunderstorms the sky was clear. Once there & after a forty minute walk to where I was to start my spin session, it was then I noticed some heavy cloud building up and it seemed to be moving in at a steady rate. I knew then I would have to get in the river and get a move on before the weather hit this area.. I was using the ghost brown lure and was having plenty of follows but no takers which was becoming quite frustrating.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 09 February 2018; Hits: 838

Mersey River

2017 12 25 Small wild rainbow trout With nothing on this morning and being Christmas Day I new where ever I fished I'd more than likely have the rivers all to myself. So I headed off to the Mersey River for a spin session in what was beautiful calm conditions and with the sun already well up I didn't hit the river until 7:15 am. The river was like a sheet of glass and there were quite a few trout already on the rise surface feeding on midges. Seeing the trout surface feeding I knew I was in for another tough few hours chasing the brown trout this morning.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 16 January 2018; Hits: 751

2017 12 21 Head shot of Mersey River brown I left home just after 5:30 am this morning and headed to the upper reaches of the Mersey River for an early spin session in what was a reasonably cool morning with the lightest of breeze. As soon as I arrived it was on with the wading gear and off for a forty minute walk to where I would start the spin session. I was trying a new stretch of river (that I checked out on Google Earth) for the first time this trip so I didn't know what to expect.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 10 January 2018; Hits: 878

2017 12 13 Solid little brown I was originally going to head to the upper Mersey River at Liena at 4:30 am this morning when I woke up but after laying there for a while I decided not to. As much as I wanted to get up I just couldn't be bothered because of a couple of sleepless nights. As the day went on and there was some good cloud cover around I then decided to head up there around 2:10 PM.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 31 December 2017; Hits: 946

2017 12 01 Plump Brown head With the Australian National Fly Fishing Championships on over the next three days I decided to give the upper reaches a fish. I arrived just after 7:00 am in what was overcast conditions, no wind and it was quite mild, really good fishing conditions. I did have a tough 1.5 km walk ahead of me to reach my starting point which I reached just after 7:30 am. With the river running very clear I was in two minds whether to go for the hard body lure or my ever reliable little Mepps spinners. I decided to go with the Mepps, now would be a black or gold blade spinner to start with. I went for the #00 (1.5g) gold blade Aglia for starters to see how that would go, if it didn't then I'd change to the black one.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 18 December 2017; Hits: 954

2017 11 15 6 Plump rainbow trout Mersey River Another warm day was forecast with gusty Nth Easterlies again with a late change and a chance of rain and thunderstorms had me in two minds if I should go fishing this morning. I was awake at 4:00 am and just laid there listening to the radio before I got up at 6:30 am to get myself ready to head of to the upper Mersey River on private property. Once out of bed I was feeling very sore again from yesterdays late afternoon session in the river and the lower back & left hip weren't all that good. I decided I'd have a bit of breakfast and take a few pain killers then head off at around 7:30 am.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 02 December 2017; Hits: 884

2017 11 14 Nice Mersey Rainbow head Still a little sore from doing some gardening etc over the weekend and having the Monday off from fishing I made the decision to go for a spin session in the Mersey River after lunch today. I was in the river at 1:30 PM in what was bright warm sunny conditions, the sun full on the clear water and a gusty North Easterly wind blowing. I started off with a small ghost brown hard body and had a take on the very first cast, the reel screamed for a short time before a solid rainbow leaped from the river and tossed the lure. I couldn't set the hooks because I hadn't adjusted the drag on the reel and that's why the rainbow tossed the lure.

: Category: Mersey River; Published: 27 November 2017; Hits: 1175

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