Some More Pics

Played around with photoshop the other night and put these 2 pics together of the big brown trout from the other weekend.

Christmas Comes Early In The Ozarks

Just returned from a great trip to the Ozarks. My main goal was to catch a big brown. This has been my goal for a number of years but every year a big fish has avoided me.

Under Water Release Shot 

Day 1 found me on the river bright and early, conditions were perfect with overcast skies and showers in the forecast along with water release from the dam in the forecast. It only took a few drifts before I was hooked up with the first fish. The morning was great as far as numbers were concerned, all the 12-16" browns you could handle but no big fish to speak of. The best fish was a nice 19-20" male. As the morning continued the water release from the dam had made its way down stream. I decided to stay put because this location made a perfect funnel for trout to move up into to feed. I picked up a few fish on high water but it was pretty slow overall. I decided to take a nap and eat lunch while the water dropped out. After the water dropped out I fished around some more before deciding to head down river to check some other water out. I found more of the same, loads of smaller browns but nothing of any size. Fun none the least, but almost to easy for my taste.

Best Fish From Day 1

Day 2 found me on the river at first light again. Deciding to fish the same run that I started at the day before hoping some big fish showed up over night. As it started getting light enough to make objects out in the water, luck would have it and I spotted a nice 25-27" brown. Unfortunately, moments before a spotted this fish I had just broke off on a smaller fish. Not sure if it was a faulty knot or the tippit got nicked. Either way by the time I was able to retie a fly the fish had disappeared. For the next hour I scanned the water like a hawk looking for any sign that the fish was still there. I decided to move upstream some to check that water out. Lots of fish in this section with some nice 16-18" class fish. The rains the day before put a nice green tint to the water. It's a color I like to refer to as "big fish green". In my experience it seems like big fish of all species like to come out and play when the water has this green tint to it. And so they did, I had the biggest brown I've ever seen in the wild sit in front of me for over 45 minutes. This fish was easily in the mid to high teens. I made drift after drift to this fish with no reaction. There was a pretty good ripple on the water from the current so it made it very difficult to see what the fish was doing and what I needed to do to entice a take. Needless to say the fish disappeared. I guess they don't get that big by being stupid. No ten minutes later I hear the guy above me reel start screaming and his flyline zipping down stream. I knew right then and there where that big fish went. I wasn't sure if this guy ate or was snagged because this guy was snagging quite a few fish. I know since I was about 30 yards down stream from him, I ended up netting several of his fish because he couldn't bring them back up river with them being tail hooked. That's all I'll say about that to keep from going into a rant. So that big fish ran straight down stream and off the shoal. The guy was hooked up with him for maybe a minute before the fish took him into a downed tree and broke off. The guy handled it pretty well, I'd still probably be in a depressed coma after losing a fish like that. That pretty much sums up day 2, finished the day with more average browns but no more big fish spotted.

I've always loved the adipose fin on browns

Foggy Morning Brown

One of the many beautiful browns

Day 3 found myself up at the dam. There typically isn't many big browns up there but there are some nice rainbows. I caught a few fish but not what I was after. So once the sun got up good enough to see well enough into the water I left for a section of the river I haven't fished in sometime but I knew it had a reputation of holding some good fish. I found a lot of fish and overall some better fish were holding in this run. I spotted a pretty good fish and after making several offerings to it he finally ate. I didn't realize how good of a fish he was until he rolled on the surface. Then when I got'em worn down and was about to net him is when I realized he was a really good fish. By far the best brown I have caught. I didn't get a measurement on him. My main concern was to get him netted and released with minimal stress. I got a few quick pics and released him to fight another day.

Couldn't be happier

I had a great time and always enjoy my trips to the Ozarks. Before I started my Blog I did a trip with Jamie Rouse of Jamie Rouse Fly Fishing Adventures. He taught me a lot about the river and defiantly shortened my learning curve and gave me several tips that have made me a better angler. He and his guides have made Orvis Endorsed Guide of the Year twice along with making the finals two more years. He's put a great team together and comes highly recommended in my book.  

Can't forget about the rainbows

I haven't used midges in forever. 

 

Brynlee Bream First Fly Fishing Trip

The wife and I took our daughter Brynlee who I call Bream down to the Guadalupe today for her first fishing trip. At 7 months Momma wouldn't let me take her into the water with me so they watched from the bank. We only fished for an hour or so but I landed 2 nice trout and long distance released 3 others. As quick as the last 7 months have gone by it wont be long before Bream is in the water right next to me with her own flyrod.

Bream and I

Momma and Bream entertaining themselves.

A nice little trout. 

GRTU

The Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited Chapter has a lease access program for the Guadalupe River. This program, provides a path to the river over private property to legally access the Guadalupe River. The program runs from November 1 to October 31 of the following year. Several of the lease sites are open year around, most site are only open during the prime winter fishing season. All trout caught on a GRTU lease sites are catch and release only. The GRTU chapter along with TP&W stock the river every winter with Rainbow Trout. You can check out more about the GRTU Chapter by clicking this LINK.  

Went and fished the Guad this morning and caught a few nice fat healthy trout that were a lot of fun on the 3wt. Didn't have good light so the under water shots didn't come out as good as I've would have liked them to. The first pic looks like the fish is smoking a cigarette, lol. It was near freezing this morning and surprisingly there were a few snakes out.

50 Best Tailwaters

One of the best things about tailwaters is that you can pretty much fish them year round. When most other waters are freezing up in the winter your local tailwater is probably fishing great. Being from Texas all the trout waters within 10 hours of me are tailwaters. Tailwaters are what I learned to trout fish on so when I heard Terry and Wendy Gunn put together a book on the "50 Best Tailwaters to Fly Fish" I had to get my hands on it. Having already fished a number of the tailwaters listed in this book and personally knowing and fished with several of the fine folks that helped contribute to this book I can tell you the information you will find is spot on. The book can be ordered from StoneFly Press and will make a great gift for the trout fisherman in your life.

Some Game Changers

Got half a dozen Game Changers ready to go. Tied on 2/0 Gammy B10s. $12 a piece plus $5 flat rate shipping, or $70 shipped to your door for all 6. If Interested please contact me by email 2FlyFish4@gmail.com

Miami Canals

Things have been pretty slow for me in the fishing dept lately. Here is a trip I made to Miami a number of years ago. This is a fun urban trip that is cheap and can easily been done yourself. Just rent a car and use google maps to lead you to the canals. Talk to some of the local fly shops and they will help you narrow down your choices to the better canals to fish. They are full of a variety of fish that are willing to take a fly. I caught most of my fish on a fire tiger conehead wooly bugger. A nice light weight 5wt rod is perfect for these peacocks. I can't remember how many different species I caught but below are some pics of the better/more memorable fish caught. Unfortunately I lost a lot of pics when my old computer crashed so this is all I was able to recover.

Lots of Butterfly Peacocks.

Even the grass carp were willing to play.

Red Devil.

Mayan cichlid.

An Oscar on the hot fly.

(Fire tiger conehead wooly bugger)

 A very nice Jaguar Guapote

It Could Have Been Worse

As I backed the truck down to the river to unload the yak this morning it was still dark. I hit a soft spot in the sand and almost buried the truck. You have to have 4wheel drive to get to this spot and the truck was in 4high which is typically all I need to get in and out of this trail down to the river. I had already buried the wheels pretty good before I switched to 4low. Once in 4low I was just barely able to crawl out of the sand and back on my way. 

Once I got the yak on the river and made my way down stream to the first hole it was just getting light. On the first cast I hooked up with a nice catfish which would have been perfect eating size if I had a cooler to put him in. Not sure what happened after that but the rest of the morning the fishing was slow. I caught a few small bass and that was it till right before I started making my way back to the truck. I was dead drifting my fly through a run when my line became tight, the fish stayed deep and had plenty of weight to him. I was thinking I had a good striper or possibly a drum by the way he was fighting. I fought the fish up and down the pool I was fishing for a good 10 minutes. He swirled several times on the surface but with the sun in my face and glare on the water I couldn't get a good enough look to determine what I had on the end of my line. I finally got him tired out enough I was able to get him up on a shallow rock bar to beach him and get my hands on what turned out to be a huge grass carp. Not sure how big he was but close to 40" and probably well over 30lbs. He put up a heck of a fight on my TFO TICR 5wt. 

Not a bad way to end the day. It could have been a lot worse if I had to spend the morning digging the truck out with no shovel.

   

Catch and Release; The Misconception

We were expecting some rain here this past weekend so I tied up a "game changer" with a purple body and a chartreuse tail section. I figured this color combo would work really good in the stained/muddy water I was expecting to be fishing in Sunday morning. We really needed the rain, surprisingly the weatherman was wrong on the amount of rain he expected we would be getting. the little bit of rain we did get got soaked up by the drought infected ground. There was no run off and no off colored water. The fly still caught some fish, but I think it was to bright for most fish in the clear water. The white "game changer" was the fly of choice.

I think instead of gold eyes on this fly, a darker eye 

will make the fly a little sharper looking. 

First cast with the new color combo landed 

this cookie cutter largemouth.  

So one of the misconceptions with catch and release fishing is that it is good management practices and will result in more fish and bigger fish. This couldn't be further from the truth. In small ponds or lakes were you have a prolific predator like the largemouth bass, it only takes a few years for them to become over populated. Do you have a favorite fishing pond where you can go and catch handfulls of cookie cutter bass up to 2lbs but nothing bigger. Most likely this pond is over populated and the bass have knocked down the baitfish population. The bass have become stunted because they can't get enough to eat to gain weight and grow. On average it takes 10lbs of consumed baitfish for a bass to gain 1 pound in weight. All it takes is a bad winter or bad drought to knock out a lot of your baitfish and then with a strong bass population it is almost impossible for the baitfish to completely recover in small waters. I had some buddies out over the weekend and the 3 of us caught probably close to 75 bass in just a few hours of fishing, 55 of those were culled from the pond and filleted. This is a private pond and in Texas this practice is perfectly legal and must be done if you want to produce trophy caliber bucketmouths. Between now and next spring I'll be trying to take another 75-100 bass out of this particular pond to properly manage this water for big bass. Catch and release practice is all about catching and releasing the correct fish and there is nothing wrong with putting some fish in the skillet. There is a misconception that bass aren't that good to eat, but if you like bluegill you'll love bass.  

Blast From The Past

I fished the Llano River several years ago. I had a great time and have no idea why I haven't been back, I defiantly need to get back down there soon. Caught lots of Red Breasted Sunfish, Guads and Rios. Make sure to check out Enchanted Rock State Park also, just a short drive from the Llano.

Enchanted Rock State Park

Hooked up while cooling off in the clear water of the Llano.

First Rio

 Gorgeous rock bluffs along the river. 

Lots of doubles on these feisty Red Breasts. 

 Some whitetails getting a drink. 

Its all about the hat. 

More bluffs. 

Early Morning Bass'n

Had a great morning catching bass on the Hawg Tied. It was a beautiful sunrise with the sky reflecting off the water as the sun came up. I tell ya what, you have to have a lot of video to be able to put a decent clip together. With todays filming I was only able to put this short clip together. Enjoy!

Game Changer Fly

So I have been tying several different styles of game changers with different hooks, different material, incorporating rattles, lead eyes, cone heads, and even made some with paddle tails that I cut off some old plastic swim baits. I like them all, but have found that using CCT Body Fur gives the fly great action, the perfect sink rate to imitate a dying/wounded baitfish and gives the fly a nice full look with no gaps between the segments. Not to mention the CCT Body Fur is what the guys over at Flymen Fishing Company are using.

I wanted to throw this out there to anyone that is interested. The below pattern is tied on a #2 Gamakatsu B10 hook, the fly is roughly 4 1/2" to 5" long and is made up of 4 segmented fish spines not including the hook. I have all colors of CCT body fur and can tie them up in any color scheme you would like. I also have an assortment of Prismacolors to produce any specific request like a trout pattern or bluegill pattern. You can request any color tail you would like, white, yellow, chartreuse, you name it.

If you are interested, please email me at 2FlyFish4@gmail.com

Starting at $10 per fly

Thanks Casey 

   

Dog Days of Summer

Its hot and summer is creeping on, we still have about another 3-4 weeks before we get any relief. I do a little bit of fishing during this time frame, but mostly just day dream, reflect on past trips and plan for new ones. Football season is fixing to start and that's great. I'll start refilling the fly box as I sit in front of the TV watching the games on Sunday afternoon.

Went fishing this morning, it was really slow. The fish are feeling the heat and aren't overly active with these long days of the bright sun. I worked an area over pretty hard for a good hour and never got a bite on the clouser. This area always has fish in it. I switched and picked up a Game Changer that I tied on a 60 degree jig hook and put lead eyes on so it would ride hook point up. On the first cast I picked up a decent little smallmouth. But that was it. With no further bites I switched back to the clouser and picked up 3 more small fish, all spotted bass. I called it a day around 10 am and headed home. Fishing will continue to drag until it starts to cool. Once the days start getting shorter the fish will start to feed more.

POC Video

Here is a short video I put together from our trip to Port O'Conner. Enjoy

Port O'Connor; Day Three

Spent the last day of our trip with Capt. Tom. Capt. Tom Horbey has fished up and down the Texas Coast for 37 adult years, with 28 of those as a pioneer saltwater fly fisherman. He is able to accommodate both fly fishing and conventional tackle. In addition to guided fly fishing trips, Tom can provide casting instructions as well as general information about saltwater fly fishing. Tom Horbey is the only full time fly fishing guide living in Port O'Connor, Tom is able to provide guiding services year round. Licensed and fully insured, make sure to book him for your next fly fishing, sight casting, conventional, wade fishing, or jetty trip. In the meantime, feel free to browse his website http://captaintomhorbey.com/. Capt. Tom Horbey makes a great spoon fly that should be in every redfish anglers fly box. They are available on his website.

Port O'Connor; Day Two

On the second day we fished the flats with Capt. Tom Horbey looking for redfish. We had a good day and landed several nice reds and also broke several more off. All in all a great day on he water.