It's been two weeks now since I damaged the hamstring and I felt it was time to put it to the test. Even though I have to see the physio again on Thursday, to me it feels good enough to have a short spin session in a river. Left Sheffield at 1:15 PM and arrived near the river just before 2:00 PM. I soon had the waders & boots on then off for leisurely forty minute walk that included a little bush bashing before I was finally at the rivers edge. All I had to do then was to find an easy entry point, instead of sliding down a steep river bank. It only took me a couple of minutes before I found one that was good enough, providing I took it easy. At last I was back to what I love doing most, spin fishing a river for that elusive trout.
The weather was quite cool with some light drizzle drifting across every now and then, not enough to bother me.. The river itself had good flow with a nice medium to dark tannin colour and a cool five degrees. This trip I was using a Mepps #00 Aglia Mouche Rouge mainly because it was already on the set up that I had on the Daiwa Presso trout rod. I could have changed it, but seeing as it was a gold bladed spinner I knew it would still do the job on the trout if there here today. This one and a half kilometer stretch of river runs hot and cold with the fishing, they're either here or they're not. I slowly worked my way upstream, it was on the seventh cast when a nice little river brown took the spinner. After it made a leap or two and a few hard runs it wasn't all that long before I had it in the net. It was a beautifully coloured little 340 gram fish that was in pretty good condition. It was soon back in the river after a couple of quick photos. That was it for quite some time, I didn't sight a fish over the following eight hundred meters before I finally had a strike from another quality brown. That fish spat the spinner as quick as it grabbed it which was a pretty disappointing.
The good thing was the hamstring wasn't a problem at all and that's even after I have carefully made my way over several fallen trees that lay across the river. Twice I had to climb back up the river bank to go around some that were just to large to risk climbing over. I fished on for another three quarters of a kilometer without a sight of a trout when I called it a day at 4:45 PM. It may have only yielded the one trout on the day, but it was certainly great to get back into a river, even better that the hamstring held up..
Adrian Webb (meppstas)
Tannin Water
Trout caught here
Only trout for the session
Wild brown trout aglia spinner