Mickyj

Ok tried the shimano nasci this morning way to windy but another problem again surfaced cast line and lure stops short took me awhile to pull line out and get a ok cast . I could’ve changed the lure but weather was against me .I'm almost  over this braid see if it improves with a heavier lure otherwise I may strip it and get a different braid on the reel  

Ok reel and j braid were fine today pity the bream at west lakes were watching me and laughing  

I finally caught my 12,000th Tasmanian trout here in Tassie, it's something I had never planned on doing either thankfully by keeping stats & records of each trip and every trout season paid off. I also won the Angling Club Championship again for the 2022/23 trout season for most trout caught in rivers & streams making it 17 years in a row.
cheers Adrian

My thought exactly where you buy your braid get them to spool it up and they will tell you the best braid and what weight of line 

Bought these 2 lures to try out bad weather and my health issues ( don’t ask not nice)
hopefully I’ll be trying  the shallow Berkeley pro tech Saturday 
anyone trued either of these 

Bought these 2 lures to try out bad weather and my health issues ( don’t ask not nice)
hopefully I’ll be trying  the shallow Berkeley pro tech Saturday 
anyone trued either of these 

Bought these 2 lures to try out bad weather and my health issues ( don’t ask not nice)
hopefully I’ll be trying  the shallow Berkeley pro tech Saturday 
anyone trued either of these 

This spin session was a tough one, conditions were pretty good, but the trout were hard to find, I still managed to get onto a few wild brown trout thanks to the Mepps March Brown Bug spinner. Thanks for watching, enjoy the musical photo slideshow at the end of the video and stay safe on/in the water..
cheers Adrian (meppstas)
 
A few pics from the spin session.. as always, all the trout were released..

Reel servicing is getting expensive. Daiwa is currently $40 a service for standard reels and $70 for high end. They usually drop in new bearings at the first sign of wear at $10+ a bearing.
I've paid over $100 a service each reel for my fancy reels.
Recently I've been dabbling in the cheaper end of the market, especially for wading and kayak fishing. I've got 5+ years out of a pair of Kast King Sharky reels. They are not as smooth as Shimano or Daiwa but they have survived the saltwater and are still reasonably smooth.
 
Ali Express also has some bargains and I'm sure the same factories make the Savage Gear Reels.
BEARKING Brand LT series Stainless steel bearing 5.5:1 Fishing Reel Drag System 15Kg Max Power Spinning Wheel Fishing Coil - AliExpress
I'm pretty happy with these for $30 a reel. They feel as good as my low end Shimano and Daiwa reels for less than the cost of a service. They are solid, just a touch on the heavy side.
 

Savage Gear reels?

Thanks Booma, it was good to see the trout were back in this little river, 2016 we had a record flood that wiped out 5 road bridges on the Mersey River as well as flooding the whole Merseylea area where over 300 dairy cattle were washed away. The Mersey River rose 7.5 metres in 2016.
When things finally settled down I managed to get a few photos of the damage on the Mersey River, it wasn't good either. Thankfully we've only had one other flood since then..
cheers Adrian
 

Cracking fish and scenery!
I always enjoy returning to rivers and creeks and after flood events, its often like fishing an entirely new stretch of water with the pool and run structures changing dramatically.

This trip was to a small river just five minutes from home, this stretch of river was one I used to fish quite often until the record floods back in 2016. That flood really knocked the guts out of this little stream as did another one back in 2022, this trip I wanted to see if the trout had returned in this stretch of river. 
cheers Adrian (meppstas)

Don’t blame you Adrian they jump like Marlin on a lure 

That they are Micky, I may have to have a break from trout fishing and go whiting fishing..😃

Kidney slappers

Here's a couple of photos of what has become a common catch here in Tasmania nowadays, not only that, they are big fish as well..
They now have a bag limit of 5 fish per person & a 10 fish possession (house) limit placed on them which is good, minimum legal size 35 cm.

So is a shimano Catana ( I think it’s spelt that way ) looking at the weather I’ll give it a try Friday morning 

So is a shimano Catana ( I think it’s spelt that way ) looking at the weather I’ll give it a try Friday morning 

Good luck on Friday MickyJ

So is a shimano Catana ( I think it’s spelt that way ) looking at the weather I’ll give it a try Friday morning 

This trip was to the Mersey River on private property, the water was very cold and the level was still on the high side for my liking, good thing was that I did manage to get onto a few trout. The wind became a real pain in the butt as it always does when river fishing..
Thanks for watching..
cheers Adrian..





 

Spring has sprung with a couple of days of warmish weather getting it started.
It seemed a good chance to try Lure fishing Yellow Fin Whiting and kick off this season with perhaps a catch or two.
The YFW lure box has not seen daylight for awhile. It was time to freshen up the lures by replacing the now well rusted out assist hooks on them.
The reels have been greased and oiled up. Trying best to prepare them for a season of abuse and dunking that wading fishing will inevitably deliver them.
All prepared I set off for a couple of days in search of my first lure caught YFW for this season.
 
The plan was to fish both warmish days ahead, determined to get off the mark for the season. I had also planned on fishing two different areas on either side of the upper St Vincent Gulf, hopefully increasing my chances.
Day one, was a hard slog with barely a YFW sighted. But plenty of Flathead about. The other variety that comes to life in Spring on the Sandflats. I spooked a few.  I dropped a couple. I had not prepared my lures by replacing the rusted hooks. They certainly will be a focus of my next session.
I had to resort to bait to find a few YFW and keep me informed as to the whiting’s presence and whereabouts.
 
Day two, which I felt might be the better day, as a result of the water warming after a couple of warm days. It proved to be the day.
It did take some effort with fish finally taken later in the day on the incoming tide. Again, probably the warmest weather spell of the two days.
I did not experiment at all with any new lures and stuck to my old favourites of the Ecogear ZX and the Bassday Sugapen.
Only 2 of the 8 lure caught fish were taken on the surface. Their body temperatures and metabolisms are still low. Making them a bit lethargic to be aggressive surface predators. As in past seasons the sub surface lures usually starts the season more successful.
Another influencing factor is, awaiting the arrival into the shallows, of the new season’s juvenile prawns from their annual, mid gulf spawn. The availability of this seasonal food source will also stimulate predatory surface feeding behaviour.
 
There is a considerable difference in water temperature on the two sides of the St V  Gulf. The Eastern side being far shallower, is the first to warm up. The Western side was significantly cooler. However this will soon even out after a more prolonged spell of warm weather.
There are signs of a promising season ahead with some very hot conditions predicted.
Every cloud has a silver lining.

This trip goes back to the last couple of weeks of the trout season, seeing as I'm still out of action with Spinal Stenosis (something that I now have to live with) and now down and out with the flu I thought I'd slip this trout fishing video on the site.. 
cheers Adrian
 

OSP Bent Minnows get inhaled by the Flathead when wading the sandflats.