GREAT  AFTERNOON  SESSION  ON  THE  DASHER  RIVER 3/4/2014

After a fair afternoon on the Dasher River yesterday I thought it would be worth while to try it once again this afternoon. I have another friendly land owner who lets me fish his property and so I made the decision to try there today. I will have close on  two kilometers of river that I can fish and I'm hoping it will fish a little better than where I fished yesterday. The wind was much stronger and gusty today and this was good as it will put a ripple on the surface which is better than being flat calm. 
Once in the river it wasn't all that bad as the wind was going over the top of the trees and so most sections were reasonably calm. It wasn't long before I had my first brown on and soon had it on the river bank. I didn't have my landing net with me today as most fish here are rarely no bigger than 400 gms.  So it looked like the little Mepps #00 gold black fury is going to be the spinner to stay with again today, well at least while they're having a go at it any way.  The first five hundred meters of river gave up seven browns from seven hookups which I was pretty happy with. There are several stretches of river over the distance that I am fishing today that are just too shallow to fish when the river is low like is is at the moment. So I will be bypassing around half a kilometer of river all up.
 
I was now working upstream right into the face of the wind and hell it was making casting difficult. I was having to cast some meter or so to the far right of the river to allow for the spinner to drop into the zone that I wanted to work. This can be a real pain too, because sometimes just as one makes the cast, the wind will drop and then the spinner goes right into a bush on the river bank. But I stuck to it and did pick up another four browns over some three hundred meters from five hookups plus I had several hit and misses along the way. So far so good as that's eleven browns being caught and released from twelve hook ups which was good. Already passed yesterday's total catch of nine. 
 
The next and last five hundred meters of the Dasher that I was going to fish turned at right angles to the wind and also had some cover along the windward side, so this was going to be much better for casting. This stretch of river also had some nice runs of fast water that are around 200mms deep and is a great area to fish as I have always picked up some nice solid browns here on previous trips.
 
Well, it didn't let me down again today either as over this stretch of river I had had ten hookups and caught and released six browns as well as having many hits and misses. The best brown went 520gms and the average weight was around 480 gms which is well above the average size for trout in this little river. It was now 6.20pm and the sun was now very low, besides I still had a fair walk back to the car so that's when I called it a day as much as I hated too. I would liked to have fished on further but once the sun gets low this time of the year it's not long before darkness sets in. I headed back to the "'Trout Stalker 2'" and I got back to it just on dark, so it was a good decision to leave when I did. Nothing worse than walking through bush and paddocks in darkness.
 
The good thing about today was the fact that every trout was over the legal size in the Dasher River something that I have never had in all my years of fishing it. So with the onslaught it had from the Cormorants and the very low summer river levels it may have done some good by evening out the population of this little river. There may be fewer fish in it now but the size and quality of them is much better which is great. So this was the best day that I have had on the Dasher River all season, 22 hookups for 17 browns caught and released made for a great session that's for sure.
Cheers,
Adrian
 
 
 
 
Go to top
JSN Boot template designed by JoomlaShine.com