Not Like Yesterday, But Still Great!

All this week I don't have to be into work until noon.  That means I've been having great mornings!

Good Day

I slipped a little fishing in before work this morning.  This is a good start to a work day!

Sand Bass

The sand bass and little stripers have been active for the last month.  I've had several 40-50 fish days and have heard several stories of guys out on the river having 100+ fish with some stripers in the 10+ lbs range.   Fishing for these little guys have been a blast.  Pat brought over a huge stash of fly tying material so I quickly tied up some streamers and I have been hitting the Arkansas river every chance I get.  The fish I have been catching are not huge but sure are fun!

Pink Woolly Bugger

I have been playing around with Woolly Buggers and markers.

The Cheap Date

I was out of hooks so Pat let me come over and raid his stash.  I tied up some twitch bugs and headed out to a drainage ditch on the side of the highway that I call The Cheap Date aka The Sure Thing.  It amazes me how these pretty little fish live here.  I always have the place to myself.  Guess it's not a real appealing place to fish.

Found Lure

I am not sure why I have been so lazy this summer, but it sure has been hard for me to do much of anything.  I have to say that I haven't fished much and the trips that I have taken have been lackluster.  Here is a little lure that was found at one of the city ponds the other afternoon.  Maybe with cooler weather I will get out more and find more lures.

Father's Day

I have to say that this father's day was the best one I've had yet.  Originally I was scheduled to work but I traded days with a coworker so I had the day off.  After waking fairly early and heading out to one of the city ponds with my little 4 weight fly rod,  I got into a big mess of blue gills and had a ball.  My casting was accurate (for a change), and I was able to place little craft foam twitchy bugs in small open pockets amongst thick weed beds.  The fly only needed to sit for no more than a few seconds before a strong splashy strike would take place.  The variety of colors on the blue gills were magnificent and ran from, but were not limited to, deep reds, oranges, and green blues.  The colors of the fish in combination with a spectacular sunrise made me fell lucky to be alive.

When I got home the family had just woken up and had a father's day bag waiting for me. The bag had come from one of my favorite  men's stores call Bison & Bear.  Kelly and the kids had gone downtown to the store and the owner, Joel, helped my wife with picking just the right thing for me.  They got me a bottle of D.S. & Durga cologne.  I guess the family was getting tired of the scent of blue gill that I had been wearing.

Fished the Upper Illinois

Had a great day fishing the Upper Illinois the other day.  Great friend, good fly rod, home made flies, fantastic river and a bunch of fish!  There's really nothing else to say.    

Goose Poop Pond

The shore of a city pond that I sneak down to in the evenings or early mornings is just covered in goose poop, so I call the place Goose Poop Pond.  You have to watch your step and when casting you don't want your fly line touching the ground.  Adding to the poop problem is the fact I am not what you call a good fly line manger, so frequently my fly line gets dropped (gross) or tangled (frustrating).  My solution this season has been to go with a stripping basket.  Kelly picked this basket up at the dollar store for her job and I snagged it.  I used an old wading belt to sling it on my hip.  Next, I raided my father in-law's well-stocked garage and got some weed eater string to put in the bottom.  I drilled about 6 or 7 holes in the bottom of the basket and glued strands of the weed eater string so that they stick strait up out of the bottom of the basket.  It works like a charm!  I am getting more cast per outing now because I am not untangling line every 10 minutes and my fly line is staying cleaner.  Pat asked me if people looked at me funny while I have this basket on my hip.  My reply was "I haven't noticed I'm too busy fishing." 

Minnow

I tied this minnow looking thing up a few days ago.  Went to the city pond for about an hour yesterday and tried it out on my new fly rod.   It worked well (both the fly rod and the minnow) and caught a few fish.

Is It a Raccoon?

This is my first attempt at tying a sculpin pattern. I messed up on the nose but it should work fine.  My wife came in the room just as I was finishing up tying it and said "How cute! Is it a raccoon?"  My flies do have a cartoonish/kitsch  look to them.

Orange Pop

It's been a busy last few weeks.  I built a 4 weight fly rod, fished a bit, and have been tying up some new popping bugs.   Here is one of the poppers that I have been messing around with.  Not the prettiest, but totally functional.  

Found Lure

I found this guy on the upper Illinois River last week.  My day started with trout fishing on the lower Illinois River, then I headed up river to launch my canoe and fish for bass and what not.  I caught a hand full of trout but couldn't quite get with the program.  The trout that I did catch, took a bead head something or other.  I wasn't using a strike indicator (bobber) and was having difficulty seeing the strikes. For the strikes that I did see, my reaction time was just too slow and I was missing fish left and right. To compound the problem, I don't think that my fly was getting deep enough fast enough.  Just as my frustration level was getting to the point of throwing a tizzy tantrum,  some old lady came up to the spot that I had just been fishing and proceeded to fling worms on a rod that looked better suited for tuna from a lawn chair.  Within 10 minutes I suspect that her arm was wearing out from all the fish she was catching.  As for trout fishing this day, I was ill prepared and not in the right frame of mind.  As I left I heard someone yell "Make sure that stringer is tied down good,  there are a lot fish on it!" It was definitely time to go.

At this juncture on the fishing trip I felt that paddling away from people would put me in a better place mentally and physically.  I decided to hop in my car and travel upstream a good ways and launch my canoe north of Tenkiller Lake on the Illinois river and then paddle upstream for about a mile.  This suited me better.  The water was warm enough that I didn't need waders, which is much more comfortable and the paddling was great.  The feeling a being miles away from everything just adds to the sense of adventure.  After paddling upstream I found a nice sandbar in the middle of the river that had a nice 50 yard run wedged between the bar and the shore.  The run had several deep holes and loads of cover.  This was perfect and I beached my canoe and fished on foot from the sand bar.  I caught several smallmouth, largemouth,  sand bass (one was near 2 lbs), and dang near a gozillion bream.  Just as I was headed back downstream to go home I found this lure.  Also, I forgot to mention the deer, red belly woodpecker, and osprey that I saw.   The day finished up nicely.

My Second Catfish on a Fly

 

I paddeld up a creek a few days ago looking for white bass.  I caught a few and also caught this guy.   

Found Lure

I hadn't found any lures in a while so I was excited to find this one the other day. I guess with warm weather I should start finding more.

Pat Caught a Fish

Nice bass caught on a plastic worm.  Pat could have dragged a shoe lace and caught fish this day!

Pat caught a fish!  Actually he caught a bunch of fish.  We had a great day on a little farm pond not too far outside Tulsa.   The pond that we fished is one of my favorite ponds for a variety of reasons.  The first reason is the place is loaded with dumb fish.  Yesterday, I can’t tell you how many times I made poor casts that came crashing down on the water and still a fish would come up and take the fly.  A place like this can make the most novice of fishers seem like a pro.  The second reason I love this pond is the fact that it is hard to fish without a small boat.  It has steep banks with thick trees and shrubs surrounding it.  There are two little cuts or coves in the pond, that when you are in them, it seems like you are back in some far off swamp.  Pat and I fish this pond out of my canoe, which adds to the sense of adventure. 

Nonstop action on twitchy flies.

As far as fishing partners go, Pat and I have a pretty good relationship.  He doesn’t fling feathers, which is a good thing because I am not sure both of us whipping fly rods around in a canoe at the same time would work too well.  The other thing that makes Pat a good fishing partner is that he doesn’t whine too much about me standing up in the canoe while I fish and zing flies past his ear.  I think I've only hit him once. 

On this trip Pat caught the most and the biggest fish of the day.  I mostly fished little surface twitchy flies and had plenty of action catching small bream and bass.  I figured I would give Pat a chance to catch one as big as the bass I caught out of the pond some time back.

I caught this bass in the pond a little over a year ago on a popper.  The fish was next to a sheer rock wall over 8ft of water.
Glory Days. I think this is my best bass to date.

Another Hobby Lobby Fly

I love this fly.  I tied it up the other day and took it out to one of the city ponds this morning.  I only had about 45 minutes to cast, but I was chomping at the bit to try it out.  The thing I like about the fly is it's made with stuff from Hobby Lobby.  Sharpies and craft fur.  Real simple to tie and it works too.  I caught three bass this morning.  All of them were small, but still, catching fish before work on flies you have tied up is great.  

Hobby Lobby

I  love going to Hobby Lobby!

Gift

When I was sixteen I would skip out of school early and  go fish the Chattahoochee River.  I really didn't know what I was doing but I was out there figuring it out anyhow.   One day I was out and I got to  talking to this a retired guy.  He stopped fishing and took the time to show me what he was doing.  Then to my surprise he pulled out a few flies that he tied and gave them to me.  One of the flies was a wooly bugger concoction he called an "Anytime, Anywhere".   To this day the Wooly Bugger is one of my favorite flies and his lesson that he gave me on the water has stuck with me for the past 26 years. 

A few days ago I was fishing one of the local streams and I got to talking with another fisherman who is a piano tuner.  This guy did the same thing and stopped fishing and shared with me what he was doing.  He also pulled out some flies that he had tied up and gave me one.   I have to say that I really appreciate it.  I hope that I can do the same for someone else.  For the piano tuner from Oklahoma City,  Thanks.

Fly Tying

A few nights ago my daughter "H" and I went to The Fabulous Tulsa Fly Fishers February Fly Tying Extravaganza and Swap Meet.  It was a huge turnout with lots of fly tying demonstrations and a pretty large selection of used gear for sale.  I can't stress enough that this group of fly fishers is a good group to hook up with.  I check out their Face book page at least once a day.  If you are a newbie to fly fishing and have any questions about a location or equipment, just post the question and I can guarantee you that someone from the group will give you sound advice that is sprinkled with friendly cheer! 

Geocaching

The other day my daughter H came in the house talking about something called Geocaching and how I had to take her over to some park to look for treasure.  I had heard vague discription of this activity but was unclear as to what it is all about.  I told her to get on the web and bring me all the information that I needed. When she returned in about 5 minutes with a location that is about 1/8 mile from our house, we put on our coats and off we went.  On the way H explained to me that people hide caches all over the place and then give the Global Positioning Sadalite (GPS) coordinates so that people like H and I can go and find the treasures.  We didn’t have a GPS unit but we Google Mapped the location and then we made a call to one of H’s friend’s Mother who has taken her kids out hunting for caches.  She gave us enough clues to so that we could find the cache.  After finding the cache I have to admit I got pretty excited and went out and bought a little handheld GPS unit.  I have wanted one for a while and now that H wanted one I figured this was a good time to buy one.  So far we have found a few caches and we are planning more.