Frio Rio

Fished the river during the holiday weekend while visiting the in-laws. Overall the fishing was decent and caught a good number of nice trout that were a lot of fun on the little 3wt. I also caught a couple of red horse suckers which put up a great fight for there size.

This fish's gill plates were chromed out

(pic doesn't do it justice)

Pretty Fish

Lots of ice on the guides 

Nice fat healthy fish

Jacob playing a fish

Red horse sucker 

Who you calling sucker

Slow Day

Fished the river today and only caught 1 small striper, Scott caught a buffalo. It was a little cold this morning but it was good to be out there.

Your Either Living It or your not

Angler Choice Flies

Just got some Drunk and Disorderly streamers in that Mike Schmidt tied up for me.The DD is a fly designed by Michigan guide Tommy Lynch of the Fish Whisperer Guide Service.  Mike is the owner and tyer of Anglers Choice Flies which is based out of Dublin, Ohio. Every fly that Mike designs gets real time being fished and must prove to be a fish catcher before it becomes available to the public. Mike ties a lot of big streamers with big eyes to entice that trophy fish your after. If there is a pattern that you do not see on ACF website, contact Mike and he will be glad to tie any pattern up for you.

CHECK ANGLERS CHOICE FLIES OUT AT THE BELOW EVENTS:

-International Fly Tying Symposium, Somerset NJ 11/17/2012 - 11/18/2012

-Great Lakes Council FFF, Holt MI 12/01/2012

-Indiana on the Fly, Indianapolis IN 01/05/2013

-Wildcat Creek Outfitters, Indianapolis IN 01/12/2013

-The Fly Fishing Show, Somerset NJ 01/25/2013 - 01/27/2013

-Buckeye United Fly Show, Cincinnati OH 02/02/2013

-Bar Flies, Dexter MI 02/13/2013

-The Fly Fishing Show, Lancaster PA 03/02/2013 - 03/03/2013

-Midwest Fly Fishing Expo, Warren MI 03/09/2013 - 03/10/2013

-Swedish International Fly Fair, Jonkoping Sweden 04/05/2013 - 04/07/2013

I'll be using these flies in a few months for some white river browns.
They should also be a largemouth killer come spring time.

Brown or Bust

Made a quick trip to Arkansas this weekend looking for a big brown. The fish are just now starting to move up on the shoals. I momentarily hooked up with a nice 18-19" brown before he was able to shake the hook loose. I saw one really nice 10lb fish, but the moment we made eye contact she scooted off the shoal into the safety of deeper water. I fished to a nice 20" class fish but never got him to eat. There is a lot of small bows and small 10-14" browns that will readily take a well drifted fly. Looking forward to the next trip. I forgot my camera and all the pictures were taken with the GoPro.

Found this gar carcass, close to 4' long 

In a few years this will be a really nice fish.

High Five Number Five

Fished the Guadalupe River over Thanksgiving. The fishing was a little slower than it was last year at this time, but the average fish was much bigger. Caught fish on all the usual; egg, san juan worm, and wooly buggers. There was a lot of moss and leafs in the water making it difficult to keep a clean fly. GRTU has already started stocking the river, with TP&W stocking every week in December and January for a total of 21,000 trout. The fishing should only get better.

What Can Brown Do For You

Had a great week up in Arkansas. Caught loads of small rainbows and small browns, got one good brown the last morning. The river was low so the larger fish were very spooky and did not hang around long.

Cookie Cutter Rainbow

Awesome Colors On These Fish

Some Trout Food

Love This Photo

Great Spots

More Trout Food

Beautiful Fish

More Beautiful Fish

Lots Of Geese On The River

Great Fall Foliage 

Big Fish Of The Trip

Kype

Fun Times on Texoma

Some buddies and I went up and fished with Scott Bridgess  today. We had a great trip like always and the 4 of us ended the day with a cooler full of limits plus some. The action was pretty consistent all day. We started the morning off chasing stripers under the birds, then when the action slowed off we went and found the fish on ledges and humps. When we got back to the dock we caught several 20+lb blue cats on 12lb spinning outfits.

Been Awhile

Its been awhile since I have posted an actual fishing report. I've been busy and haven't had much luck when I have had the chance to fish. A few weeks ago I fished Denison dam and didn't even get a hit. I was suppose to go chase some tiger muskie in New Mexico last week, but the report was the fishing was not that good and there was an approaching cold front that would most likely make the already poor fishing even worse. I decided to not beat a dead horse and canceled the trip. Me and a buddy were suppose to go to Broken Bow this weekend, but that also got canceled because he had some stuff come up. I decided to stay in town and head out to my parents and fish for the morning. The fishing was slow and only a handful of bass landed. Justin joined me and we had a good time despite the lack of fish caught. The bass were just picking the fly up and slowly swimming off with the fly so bite detection was a little difficult, especially as the mid morning winds picked up.

Decent Morning

This morning was pretty decent. There was heavy rain before daylight, but once it started getting light the rain  tapered down to a light sprinkle. The day consisted of about a half dozen small stripers and a half dozen or so smallies, with a kicker being a drum. Drum are probably one of my favorite non-game fish that I catch fairly frequently. The drum from the river always have great colors, fight hard and hit the fly with a thump. This will probably be the last trip I make down river this year, the rest of the year I will be up by the dam looking for a big striper.

   

Port Aransas

If your idea of offshore fishing is walking out to the end of the jetty, you might be a redneck. Scott Bridgess

Scott and I made a quick weekend trip down to the coast. We started the first morning off fishing packery channel. The fishing was slow, Scott caught a small jack and I caught a small trout. We then decided to run up to Port Aransas Jetties. There was a lot more activity there with bait being busted on the surface. We caught a couple smacs and got bite off several times. We took a break and went and ate lunch at Virginia's. Had some great seafood and hit the jetties for more fishing. Scott and I both had numerous hard hits that were shortly followed by slack line. We were getting bite off by kings. I hooked up for a few minutes to a nice fish that quickly took me to my backing, but it didn't take long for my 50lb  fluorocarbon leader to get chewed through. We switched over to wire leaders but could not get a bite, the fish were just to line shy. It seemed the best set up for the jetties is a stout 9 or 10 weight with intermediate line. The fish really seemed to like white and blue or white and olive baitfish patterns.

Decent Smac

Mouth full of razor sharp teeth

Watch those fingers

Hooked up momentarily 

The only tarpon we jumped

Happy Fish and Wet Fisherman

So far this August has been unseasonably cooler with quite a bit of rain for Texas standards. Fall seems to be approaching early this year. I noticed a few flights of teal along with some snipe on the river this morning. The  fish were happy and feeding today. I started the morning off throwing a crease fly and caught lots of striper. They were all on the small side but still a lot of fun to watch them hit the surface chasing the imitating shad as it popped along the surface. After the morning top water bite slowed down I switched to fishing subsurface and had a lot of action on clousers. I caught some nice stripers and smallies that were a ball on a five weight.

A pretty spotted bass

This striper fought hard on the 5wt

A very nice smallmouth

 It rained on and off all day

A nicely colored drum

Brazos Bust

Me and a buddy fished the Brazos below Lake Whitney today. We both got skunked.... Not sure what was going on but we couldn't buy a bite. Everyone else we spoke to on the river didn't have much luck either. Saw some huge carp and got a couple shots at them but could not get them to eat. Due to all the grass in the river they would have probably just broke me off if I did hook hook up with one. Saw some big longnose gar also but couldn't get them to eat either.

Suicide Trip

Suicide trips are what I call trips that I spend more time driving then I do fishing. I had to make a quick delivery to a customer up in Arkansas Thursday evening, and my boss was gracious enough to let me stay the night and get a few hours of fishing in Friday morning before I headed back. The first fish I caught that morning was a decent brown, shortly followed by a small brook trout, and the third fish was the rainbow to complete the slam. The rest of the morning consisted of one more brown trout and a few rainbows before I had to hit the road to head back. So 14hrs of driving, only a few hrs of sleep because I slept in the back seat of the truck. Which was no easy task due to getting eat'n up by mosquitoes and the cramped quarters of the truck with 80 degree temps didn't help out any. All in all I got 4hrs of fishing in; and I would do it all over again. And I'll be getting up at 4am to meet a buddy down on the Brazos to fish all day tomorrow. Have I mentioned how great my wife is and how much I love her for putting up with all my fishing. Love You Babe :)  

Nice Brown

The Brook

The Rainbow to finish the "Slam"

Into the fog 

Some of the brooders are 20+lbs 

Rec'Repair

I finally wore a hole in my Native Ultimate from dragging it...... I found this product online called Rec'Repair. It is designed to patch/repair just about any type of materiel. It was very simple to install, all you have to do is heat it up with a heat gun and the patch becomes flexible and soft and will mold to whatever you attach it to. You remove the sticky back and apply it to the area you want to patch. As it cools down it becomes rigid and will hold its shape. The whole process only takes a few minutes. They also make skid plates for your craft so you can be proactive in protecting the hull of your yak/canoe.

The below video shows some of the possibilities 

the product can be used on/for. 

Hole in the keel from dragging the yak.

Literally 3 minutes later I'm done.