Well for the first time this season I was in the Meander River by 5:00 am this morning in what was a beautiful cool morning with plenty of water flowing down the river. The day was supposed to reach 27 degrees, that's the reason for the early start. I was hoping the trout fishing would be better early morning than the later starts I have had on this river. I do prefer the early morning starts on the rivers as it is the best time to be on the water, the trout fishing is usually at it's best then, especially in the Summer months. This river hasn't fished all that well this season and this is another reason I wanted to have the early start on it. There was only one thing I wasn't happy with and that was the water level, the river was running at 70 cms which is a little on the high side where I'm fishing.
I started the day using the same spinner as I have been doing now on several trips, it was the Aglia Furia. The very first cast to the opposite river bank resulted with a solid hit & miss. Two casts later with a cast up and across the fast flowing water I had another hit & miss before I eventually hooked and lost a small trout. So the fish are here, it's just a matter of getting one to stay hooked. I moved into another wide medium flowing stretch of river that was well above the knees, it was quite tough working my way upstream against the flow. This stretch of river I had two more hook ups, like before I lost both fish. With two more stretches of water to fish before I was getting out and moving to another area further up he river I was hoping to catch couple of trout. I was using the cast & drift method for most of the morning, it was getting the results but I just couldn't get a fish to stay on. Finally, those two stretches of river gave up three browns all of which stayed on. Only one of them was a medium size brown that went 320 grams, the other two were small browns around 180 grams.
I headed off to the next area of river which was around 1.5 kms further upstream, it was a much easier wading here because it was a lot wider and a shallower stretch of river than where I had just fished. Most of the water depth here was just below the knees making it easier to wade which is less tiring on the body. There were hundreds of caddis moths along both sides of the river and every so often a trout would leap from the river trying to catch one. The fishing was fairly slow here as well with just the three trout caught & released from the only four hook ups I had over some 700 meters of river. I had a few follows and that's as far as it went here. It was another disappointing session on the Meander River again with just the six trout caught & released... On the way home I checked out the small creek I often have a fish in and found it had a reasonable flow from recent rains in the highlands. So I had a few flicks in it with the Furia and had a couple of follows but no takers. I then tried a small hard body lure and caught two trout in two casts with the best on going 510 grams. A little further up a large brown came hard and fast at the lure, it took it on the second grab. I thought it was well hooked, as I put pressure on the line to set the hooks it leaped from the river I more or less pulled the lure from it's mouth. That trout would have been in the 1.5 kg to 2 kg range and would have been my best for the season had I managed to catch it.. But it wasn't to be, I'll just have to wait a little longer wont I.
Adrian Webb
Small brown falls to the Aglia Furia
Made it across but it wasnt easy
Solid Brown
Caddis moths against a grey background
Last trout of the session
