Personal Bests

Steve Hollensed

Cody wanted to me to enjoy my week's Fall Break, so he booked a Lake Texoma trip with Guide Steve Hollensed of Flywater Angling Adventures.  Originally planned for Thursday, the high winds, tall white caps, and crazy weather pushed our trip back a day to Friday, which turned out to be a beautiful, clear blue sky, and almost no wind day.  Those conditions meant we had to be on top of our game, because the fish could see us and our zinging fly lines long before we saw them.  Choosing to fish with our 7# rods loaded with Generation 3 Class V Streamer Stripper lines, we cast to rocky shorelines and stripped our lines in quickly, then pausing briefly to let our flies sink, we resumed stripping quickly, and cast again.  Our retrieves imitated the abundance of bait fish present.  Our numbers of fish were not high but the quality of fish equaled personal bests on many catches.

We set out on the water prior to sunrise and watched a beautiful morning dawn.  Heading to where Osprey were resting in trees, I cast to a shoreline lined with big rocks.  Steve told us we were going to move after this cast, so I cast towards a small tree about three feet prior to the point, and on the second strip, a fish hammered the chartreuse and white Half and Half Fly.  Then, the fish leapt completely out of the water, and Steve and Cody were hollering, "Whoa, Smallmouth!  Smallmouth!" and "That's a nice Smallmouth!"  "C'mon, Miss Julia, bring her in."  As it neared the boat, the fish headed under the boat by the motor.  At one point, I thought I lost the fish because the line slacked as it swam back toward shore, but another strip eliminated the slack, and I reeled in the excess line.  The leader was at my tip guide, and the fish swam alongside the boat avoiding the net.  While the fight lasted a little over two minutes, when it kept swimming away from the net, I thought I wasn't going to land the largest Smallmouth I had ever caught.  However, Steve netted it, and Cody helped me weigh, 2 1/2 pounds, measure, 17 1/4 inches long, and take my picture with it before releasing that beautiful fish back to its home waters.

Cody began fishing after an enjoyable lunch.  Using a fly Cody learned  to tye from Jen Ripple during her September visit to the Texas IFFF Convention and the Dallas Fly Fishers meeting, Cody caught his personal best Smallmouth and Striper.  We were fishing a rocky embankment, and Cody cast his fly about two inches in front of the rocks.  The fly was barely in the water when his line went tight.  About  two feet from the boat, the fish surfaced just enough for us to see its back so we could identify it as not a Striper.  A few more strips, and Cody's rod tip doubled over.  Cody worked his rod tip under the boat, as the fish swam from one side to the other.  Once back on the shore side of the boat, Cody stripped the fish in, and Steve netted another large Smallmouth.  Cody's fish weighed 2 1/4 pounds but was 21 1/4 inches long.  I really don't know why the fish was skinny, because it was healthy and fought hard.  I enjoyed snapping his photo with the longest Smallmouth I had ever seen!

With waters as smooth as glass, we headed back to a previously fished shoreline.  Graciously, Cody let me have the front of the boat.  Continuing to cast his shad-patterned fly towards the shore while an Osprey watched, Cody's line went tight about five feet from the shore.  Cody reeled, and the fish pulled line off, and Cody reeled and the fish fought back.  We knew Cody either had a Striper or a White Bass.  When he landed the fish, I thought that it was a Hybrid, but Steve told us since these landlocked Stripers don't have a wide gene pool variance, that sometimes their stripes are broken, so looking at the their tongue confirmed the fish identity as a Striper or Hybrid.  Cody's catch had a double tongue, so Cody caught a 4 1/4 pound Striper.

All-in-all, the day's totals were two Smallmouths, two White Bass, one Striper, and because the bait fish were so incredibly thick, five Threadfin Shad.  We also saw many Blue Heron, Osprey, including seeing one catch a fish and fly off with it, and a Bald Eagle.  We worked hard for our catches, and enjoyed a most beautiful Fall day on the water!

Fishing with Jerry

Jerry Hamon, President of the Mariner Sails Kayak Fishing Club and member of the Native Watercraft Pro Staff, guided a small get-together of the Texas Women Fly Fishers on a morning kayak trip.  Cody and I chose to spend the night a recently opened campground to make a little adventure of the trip.  We met up, loaded up, and headed on down the river.  We casted deer hair and topwater flies to eager Largemouth Bass swimming in shade-covered, clear water.  We switched to chartreuse and white Clousers and rust-colored Red Asses to land beautiful Stripers, Crappie, Sunfish, and a Gasper Goo.  We watched a young, juvenile Bald Eagle watching us.  All-in-all, it was a great morning, most especially, because we finally got to fish with our friend, Jerry.

Jerry Hamon

Les Jackson

Gator Bait & Lizard Lick

Amistad 2013, Good Enough Springs

It was a long day, today with lesser than usual time to fish.  To access up river, the Diablo East Ramp,

et. al. are the put-in points, since the Box Canyon Ramp is now closed. We wanted to go to Good Enough Springs and check it out, curious as to what we would see.  Along the way, Cody GPS waymarked each channel marker he had not previously marked.  We discovered a rancher's stock pond, and of course, the old Catholic Church on the Mexican side.  We had a strong tail wind, which meant it was going to be a rough headwind on the return trip.

While nothing like it was prior to the lake's filling in 1969, Good Enough Springs provided some excellent fishing.  At the Single Buoy Mooring (SBM), the water depth was 81 feet with the immediate surrounding area 76 feet.  We fished big rods (7, 8, and 9 #s), heavy sinking lines, size 12 flies in brown colors with red eyes, and fast retrieves and caught lots of Stripers and some Largemouth Bass.  Often times, the Stripers schooled and some of the LMBs joined them.  However, it was a very tight, concentric area around the spring that was fishing well; move more than 17-20 feet away from the buoy in any direction, and the fishing dropped off completely.

While the fish never wizened to our presence, their schooling dropped off, and so we moved to the cove just south of Good Enough Springs.  It was difficult to control the boat with the high tail wind in the cove, but we pulled some nice Largemouths out of there.  Leaving the cove, we saw the birds dive-bombing just east of the SBM, so we fished the area for more hook-ups.  Even though there was plenty of daylight, we had to leave the fishing to give us time to make the long ride back.

We stopped and fished Sugarhead Creek (across from the old Catholic Church on the Mexican side near marker 15), where Cody pulled out a nice Largemouth Bass.  Acting like an old cabin's dog run, the cove walls funneled the winds making controlling the boat and fishing difficult, so we traded out guiding.  Running the trolling motor allowed me to watch Cody's hook-up, which was a blast from beginning to end.  Regrettably, I had no video rolling, but seeing that fish spot Cody's frog from 20 feet away, and then watching that fish aggressively launch itself from underneath the rock cover and inhale the frog proved to us that our fishing strategies have merit.

Striper Time

Bright Monday (the day after Easter in the Christian calendar) was a holiday for me.  Cody had promised we would go fishing Monday after working hard Easter Sunday afternoon pulling weeds, vines, and cleaning out the flowerbed.  (Seeing as to how sore we both were, maybe we should have fished first and done yard work second.)

Taking Steve Hollensed's advice, we took big rods, sinking lines, and white flies.  Cody fished his 10# 475 grain line, and I fished my 8# 350 grain line.  Having that heavier line really made the difference.  Cody fished an all white, red-eyed, size 4 Clouser Minnow, and I fished my size 4 Bass Brunch--Gizzard Shad pattern.

Getting on the water around 4:15, we thought we would be pressed for time, so we put in at Eisenhower State Park to put us a little farther up the lake.  We didn't have to travel far.  We hit the first cove, fished it pretty intensely, and no fish, no bites, no takers.  We worked the shore line heading east towards the next cove, when we talked about moving farther up river/lake to chase those spawning ladies.  As Cody maneuvered the boat, the depth finder lit up like a Christmas tree.  So, we stayed and fished and hooked in to one Striper after another.  Cody out-caught me, with a total of 18 fish for the boat in a little under four hours; Cody boated 12 and me six, and I can't remember how many more hook-ups we had, but there were plenty, some just 1 - 2 feet from the surface--hard hit-and-runs.  Also, this was the calmest day I have ever spent on Lake Texoma.  The wind was anywhere from 0 to 3 miles per hour!  I did not know this lake could even be calm, but calm the seas were--a first for me.

The best Striper of our day was a 3.2 lb fat girl ready to pop!  I wish I had videoed the fight that fish put up.  That Lady Hybrid bent Cody's 10# TFO TiCrX double several times, and did she ever put the zing in his reel when she dove and ran.  I love fights like that, and these fish didn't just eat the flies; they were inhaling them.  Many hook-ups occurred at the back of the tongue past their tooth patches.  Even with barbless hooks, we had to be careful removing them.  One even was hooked in the gill plate.  Careful hook extraction saw that boy swim away.  On a personal note, this was the first time I fished my Bass Brunch fly targeting the fish for which I designed the fly, and it worked well, so I was really pleased.

I also experienced another first.  At dusk for the first time in my 29 years and 10 months of owning a fishing license, I was finally asked to show it.  We were leaving the fishing for another day, when the third boat of the day bore down on us.  Being in a flats boat and only having one engine, it does get a little intimidating, especially when the other boats change their coarse at the last minute.  Unlike the other two, though, this one had blue lights, meaning it was a Texas Game Warden.  I don't know about other states, but in Texas, the Game Warden is the most powerful law enforcement official.  They need no warrant to search your boat, vehicle, person, or property.  Boundary lines are non-existent for them.  They can seize your property without a warrant.  They are some great folks, but they mean business.  Of course, we had our licenses, boat registration, life jackets, and fire extinguisher, and Dale Moses was a really nice fellow, but still, if you're smart, you give a Texas Game Warden all the respect; they can make your day or ruin your day.  After saying good night, we boated back in, loaded up, and headed for home.  Being with the Game Warden, kept us out on the water an extra 45 minutes, so we arrived home later, but the fishing was all worth it, regardless how tired I was today at work.  Full and near-full moons make for excellent fishing, hands down!