# Last days of the trout season.



## wrasseman (Jul 28, 2006)

Hi all,

Down here in Tas the brown trout season has just finished and so for the next three months no more of my beloved stream fishing. However on the last weekend I managed to get out a bit with some success. 
Saturday was the time to finally take a workmate up on his offer to fish on his land and hit a relatively unfished section of one of my favourite rivers: the meander.










The first fish came on about my third cast and though only small at about 28cm it still augered well for the day. for about 30min I continued to fish off the bank in an area cleared of willows picking up two more fish which got progressively bigger to 38cm before the relatively deep water and overgrown banks forced a retreat to the car for the yak which I had left in there from a previous trip.
Continuing upstream in the yak I quickly hooked up again to a nice fish only to have it jump off at boatside and several more earned their freedom by doing the "swim towards the yak then go ballistic" thing. 
Finally one stayed connected long enough and came in with his fins up in surrender.










After this I broke out the mini gear for a shot on the penrod (small enough to fit in the backpack - luv it), shortly after getting my first yak-fish on the toy gear.










After this I went back to the real gear and as the river changed character to a shallower shingle bottomed affair and it was time for a bit of wading.
A long cast to the head of a pool produced a solid whack and then with a sharp crack the line parted just above the reel. Luck was on my side however as I sulked about the loss when I spotted my line floating on the surface upstream. To my surprise as I pulled up tight I was able to not only retrieve the lure but also the fish which was still attached.










On that note it was time to call it a day and head off to work but the season wasn't over and on sunday after my first option was washed out by overly high river flows I headed to the lake river, a little stream I've only fished a couple of times since "discovering" it earlier this season. 
With little water about










it was a wading session and though this river is typically a lots of small fish spot I was fairly confident I'd get a few to finish the season on a high note. I wasn't disapointed, picking up a few typical river fish.










But the best was yet to come, as towards the days end I came to a lovely looking spot where a relatively large pool bottlenecked into a shallow gravelly run along a shaded udercut bank. Occasionally you do a cast that you think just has to be worth a fish and this was one of those and my little spoon was absolutely clobbered by a nice fish that put up quite a tussle in the fast water before allowing me to land and unhook it.


















At 53cm, it wasn't my best for the season but certainly up there and a great way to finish. However me being me I just had to have one more cast and so my last fish for the season wasn't actually such a high note.










Particularly when a cast into a small pond on the walk back to the car produced this:









Still a nice end to the season so I can't complain.

Col.


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## T-curve (Feb 19, 2007)

great report Col...miss my trout fishing..great sport hunting them down and getting a hook up on such an elusive fish and in water you would never thought fish existed :wink:


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## Fishing Man (Oct 4, 2006)

great report and awesome pics,


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## aleg75 (Dec 20, 2005)

Fantastic report and photos! a great read! The rod in the pics looks good, wondering what brand/model it is? looks very light!


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## wrasseman (Jul 28, 2006)

aleg75 said:


> Fantastic report and photos! a great read! The rod in the pics looks good, wondering what brand/model it is? looks very light!


The rod is only a newbie for me (2 weeks old) and only a cheapie but so far I like what I've seen. Its a shakespeare catera SP6050: a 2pc 5ft stick rated for 2-6lb line and made of IM8 graphite. The taper is quite fast and it has a lot more power than it looks. It does a good job casting light lures from under 1g up to 7g (flicks a 7g spoon a mile) or so and is great value for $60 and if anything its a bit heavy as an ultralight stick, probably ideal for 4lb fireline. The other rod in the 3rd pic is one of the mini (3ft) telescopic "penrods" you see on ebay which I've been playing with as an ultralight fun stick, this one isn't a serious fishing tool rather more of a toy but I've caught fish up to a 50cm trout on it (first fish I hooked on it) and its certainly a novelty to use but it suffers in the casting department and is challenging to fight a fish on, fun though.

cheers
col.


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## PoddyMullet (Aug 29, 2005)

Nice report Col, great to see the crap water levels didn't stop ya getting stuck in this season. How did this year rate compared to last in terms of catch numbers? :?:


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## wrasseman (Jul 28, 2006)

Hi Poddy, 
I reckon my catch rates were pretty similar this season to last, maybe up a bit but in terms of numbers I'm well down as I haven't fished nearly as much with more than 3 months in the middle of the season without a cast due to uni and less spur of the moment short sessions due to the low water levels making some of the closest suburban waters unfishable or non-existant - the fish had enough to worry about without me increasing their problems.

Cheers
Col.


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## Blaen (Jul 4, 2006)

HI Col,

Nice report, I can't wait for the season to open again, trust me to come back to Tassie when the season is over  Ah well there is still hope for September I suppose.

I am thinking a camping/kayaking trip down the Esk is needed in October/November. There I go dreaming again :roll:


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