gale force windsGale force winds, but I still managed a few trout. 14/1/2016

With the cool change finally here I headed off to fish the Meander River this morning at 5.30am. The forecast was for gale force winds but it wasn't too bad when I left Sheffield and headed off for the forty minute drive. I was in the river just before 7.00am in what was ideal conditions with it being overcast and a light South Westerly breeze. The first section of river I had just the two hooks up from small browns, they just didn't stay on the Rapala lure. I'm hoping this is not going to continue as the last trip here back on the 4th January when I lost the first four browns before I finally landed one. Well it only took me just on thirty five minutes before I had my first brown on this time and I only lost one other brown before I caught and released this 460gm trout. It's always good to get that first fish into the net that's for sure. 

The wind was starting to pick up a quite a bit now and it was getting much cooler too, actually it was bloody cold to say the least. I continued on working my way upstream and it was getting difficult to cast the light weight Rapala up and across the river. Several times the wind shot it back to within ten feet of me, plus it was causing wind knots in the 4lb mono on the cast. I wasn't giving it away yet especially when I still had around two kilometers of river to fish. I did think of changing to a #0 (2.5gm) black fury spinner which is a little heavier and it wouldn't catch the wind quite as much as the balsa wood Rapala. I decided to tough it out as long as I could with the Rapala.
This was a good decision as over the next two kilometers to where the car was, I caught & released another nine browns from fourteen hook ups as well as having several hit and misses. The last kilometer was as tough as I've had it on a river as the wind was at gale force and the river surface was covered in leaves, wattle seed pods as well as having small twigs floating down the river. The trees were actually being shredded and I finished up having to button up my shirt to the neck as the fine shredded leaves etc was being blown down the front of my shirt. I wasn't sorry to get back to the car at all.
Good thing was I added another ten trout to my seasons tally taking it to 379 now.

Cheers Adrian..

First brown of the session a nice 460gm well conditioned fish

gale force winds