- Posts
I took the last weekend in Launceston to fish one of the local rivers on Saturday, but not much action at all until around 4pm. But then, I was fortunate to see the chaos of sub-surface feeding trout.
I came across an area of ‘the’ river where coming from a long pool, the start of a tailwater was just deep enough (20-30cm) to act like a food funnel, and I saw 4-5 trout splashing and charging about, dorsal’s out of the water, and sometimes even getting side on to eat in ankle deep water. And all this, oblivious to me standing about 2-3 rod lengths behind them.
So I tried my hardest to fish; they ignored my dries, dry droppers, even threw on a woolly bugger, finally (thinking of egg patterns) a pink beaded nymph did the trick. A feisty little 1lb male (came from nowhere), in all its breeding colouration , leaking quite a lot of milt. Even after this, the bigger fish remained feeding. And I threw a lot more castes at them and ignored me until I had to leave as it got darker and I had to go to the pub….
I wasn’t able to sieve the water so have not idea what they were feeding on.
I am hoping some could tell me what they would recommend I do in this circumstance? What flies might have been more successful? Should I have gone small weightless nymph??
cheers, G
They do shuffle and jostle about and the female will roll on her side to start ‘testing’ and disturbing the substrate. Smaller males will hang back hoping for some action. Large gravel up to fist sized in faster chutes of water are preferred sites in our streams. Spawning in late April and May is common. To quote a notorious poacher: ‘Mother’s Day for Browns’ (Father’s Day for Rainbows).
It was foreplay/finplay and time for the camera rather than the rod. It is happening in a few rivers this week and this afternoons weather pattern tells the tale. Its a fair guess that if you are seeing behaviours you have never seen before its because there is something going on that only happens rarely.
What a season on the rivers. If we get a good wet winter and a good spawning run… it could get pretty exciting down here. You were lucky to watch that.
Cheers…Jimmy
Most definitely amorous trout with only one thing on their mind – fishy fornication. The same thing was happening in the shallows at Penstock. The fish had already decided the season was over.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.