28 December 2011

Small Pond, Big Rainbow Fun

West Texas, where ranchers can go broke fencing their property ($14,000/mile), money smells, and you can watch your dog run away for three days.  Amidst this flatness lies Crane, a small town with an even smaller community pond.  However, the pond is not too small that it is overlooked by TPWD's trout stocking schedule, and on 6 December 300 Rainbows were added to the Crane Community Pond.  With a keep limit of three per person per day, we weren't sure whether there would be any little stockers left, but we thought we'd wet a line and find out.  What a hoot!  For two hours, we caught fish after fish, and these Rainbows had pretty spots and great coloring.  They were also larger than the average size stockers.  Cody out fished me, today and stopped counting his catches after 14 fish, and I caught 14 for the day.

On a side note, when we read today's Odessa newspaper, first section, front page, was a photograph of the man that was fishing in between Cody and I, the one who caught the albino Rainbow Trout, on Tuesday's outing.  What a strange, but interesting, coincidence.  We know they are stocked fish, but fun fishing, nonetheless.  I even managed to catch one on my Bass Brunch Gizzard Shad pattern!  Size of the pond does not determine the quality of fun, at least in the case of the Crane Community Pond.









27 December 2011

West Texas Rainbow Stockers

Cody and I are visiting family in West Texas, and today, we decided to go to Odessa's Comanche Trails  Park, because it is on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's trout stocking schedule. Having received 6,000 trout on 20 December, we believed there would still be plenty to catch, not that we were keeping any, we just wanted to have a little fun fishing.  It took Cody three casts before he had Rainbow Trout On! the end of his CodyBugger.  We hit a dry spell, and seeing there were people about every 10 yards, finding a different spot from where we could fish required a little patience and perseverance, but prevail we did.  What a great spot, too!  We caught several fun, pretty little trout, and while I would have loved to fish with the 2# rod, I can't cast it 60 feet, especially with a light wind blowing, so the 4# it was.

There was a gentleman fishing in between Cody and I, and on his last catch, I observed what I thought was a really pale fish, but I ended up with FishOn! so I didn't pay attention.  This gentleman went over to Cody and showed the albino trout to Cody.  They came over and showed it to me.  I had never seen an albino Rainbow Trout, but now that I have, they sure are pretty.  Albino Rainbow Trout aren't really white, but yellow, including their eyes, with a white and pale pink lateral line.

We enjoyed the day and may try to catch any one of the remaining 300 at the Crane County Pond before we leave to go home, but in the meantime, here are some trout from our outing, today.







12 December 2011

Fly-A-Thon 2012

As a fly tyer and a North Texas CfR River Helper, I
discovered a cause worthy of our attention, the Fly-A-Thon 2012.  Promoted by Rod Viator and supported by Round Rock's fly shop Living Waters Fly Fishing, Fly-A-Thon 2012 will collect flies tied by Texas tyers and disseminate them to Casting for Recovery and Reel Recovery.  The Fly-A-Thon begins 1 January 2012 and runs through 31 March 2012.  Tyers do not have to attend Living Waters' weekly Thursday tying sessions to participate.  All tyers have to do is tye up some of their favorite patterns and mail them to Chris Johnson prior to 31 March 2012.



Contact Chris at this address:
Chris Johnson
c/o Living Waters Fly Fishing
309 West Main Street,
Suite 110
Round Rock, Texas 78664-5818
512-818-3474--fly shop
512-507-7733--guide service
e-mail:  Chris@livingwatersflyfishing.com



10 December 2011

Mud Hole 2012 Calendar is Published

Mud Hole has released its new 2012 calendar, and we are April 2012!  The entry submissions were impressive and numerous, and Cody and I feel honored to have made the cut.  The overall calendar is a great showcase of what people are creating.  No wonder fly shops struggle to stay in business.  Creating flies and building rods are fun hobbies, limited only by the creator's imagination.  Overall, the calendar has great photos detailing lots of creativity around the globe, with the exception of one month, which is so busy there is no focus.

Cody's original photo
We were disappointed with what Mud Hole did with our photograph, though.  Shot at over 8 MPs, Mud Hole and Fishing Photos, who hosted the contest, really altered the lighting on the original.  We understand it was to showcase the cork handle Cody built for my 6# rod, but it makes the rest of the shot look like Cody took a bad picture.  Being a professional photographer in his working life, their photo edits embarrassed Cody, and he doesn't want folks to know he took the picture.

Mud Hole is our go-to source for the majority of our rod-building needs, and we do like the calendar, especially since it is our first endeavor of entering the print media together.  (Cody has been featured in many different magazines fly fishing, so he is a little famous.)  We bought several, and who knows, we may enter the contest again next year.  We'll see where our fly fishing adventures take us in 2012.

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