Click & Pawl Drag or The One Way Clutch Drag--Which??

This past week has been Spring Break for most of Alabama and the weather has been nothing like spring. In fact the only day that might be good for fishing would be Friday, when I will go. Cold days and nights can make fishing horrible anywhere and that includes the South. So with some time on my hands this week I decided I would search the net for another Gloomis Venture 3 Fly reel. This fly reel was discontinued by Gloomis last year, why I don’t know but in my mind they discontinued a fantastic fly reel. It had the one way clutch drag feature which enables one to retrieve coils of line at your feet back on the reel in a matter of seconds. Spinning the face of the reel will accomplish this. I found while searching that most of the fly reels descriptions listed on the net never mention this feature and better yet the tech support personal at Cabelas and Bass Pro didn’t have a clue about a one way clutch drag, quick release or free spool when it pertains to fly reel drags. If you notice when descriptions are written for fly reels, there is more information about the appearance of the reel as opposed to the type drag. The only fly reel I found that mentioned the one way clutch was the Pflueger Trion. The Pflueger retrieves line as fast as the Gloomis. I know that a lot of us still use the old click and pawl drag, which is used on the Redington Drift and the Orvis Battenkill reels. Don’t get me wrong I like both drag features and have the Redington and the Orvis reels, but I am still partial to the Venture because of the quick retrieve. I never found another Venture in all my searching, but I found out some things I didn’t know about drags on fly reels. What is your preference the click and pawl or the one way clutch fast retrieve?   

Crappie Fishing With My Brother Using Curly Tail Jigs

I made a trip to Mississippi on Tuesday for some crappie fishing on the new restructured Legion Lake. This is the same lake that was practically consumed by lily pads and coontail moss last year. This is my brother’s home lake where he fishes for crappie this time of year. Conditions were not the best considering the cold front that had passed through the day before I arrived. One can expect cold fronts, windy conditions, and bluebird skies in the month of March and this trip had all those conditions.

The reward for the trip was this nice catch using the following tube jigs loaded with nibbles. There were some nice slabs here.

Closed faced spincast reels with 11 ft. jigger poles rigged with 6 lb. test line are your best combos when Spider Fishing, because of the reach one can achieve with this type of pole.

My brother standing by his boat with 8 jigger poles set up ready for action fishing with the curly tail crappie jigs. Think of the amount of water one can cover when Spider Fishing

An image of what this lake looks like this past summer before reconstruction took place this year, notice the moss pads in the distance and all the growth around the edges, much cleaner to fish now. 

Beginning my Big Bluegill Quest in "The Year of the Bluegill"

Friday was the day to start my big bull bluegill quest. So in keeping with the theme “The Year of the Bluegill” I made my first trip to Walker County Lake about 20 minutes from the house. I was so anxious to get on the water that I forgot to call and check the water temps at the lake. With that bit of information missing I arrive at the lake around ten and made the best of the day fishing for really small bluegills and one little bass in 52 degree water. I know exactly when the big bluegill begin there migration to the shallow water which is 62 degrees and Friday was not the day the big bulls move anywhere near the shallow edge.

I just had to get a picture of a Father and Daughter getting ready to try their luck with the red worms. This little girl was so excited being out there with her Dad. She kept telling him she wanted to catch a fish!

Using this little boat is the best way to fish this lake. It sets high in the water and is easy to maneuver and can get into tight places. I use a rudder on the back to keep it straight when paralleling the bank. It is light and easy to load in the back of my truck.

These little ducks really got to me before the day ended. It seemed everywhere I placed my nymph they would be there in a few minutes. If I had been fishing poppers or dries they would have ruin any change for a hit on top, because they were cruising the banks. They were not Mallards.

 

This big bull was worth the trip. It was landed a couple of hour into the trip on a fly that David Knapp of “The Trout Zone” tied for me a while back. He was tying some trout flies for me that I will try this month on tailrace. He included this little Seal Leech nymph in size 12 with the shipment. It was the fly of the day for me.  I landed this nice gill with his Leech pattern using my 8 ½ ft. 4 wt. it was quite a battle, and well worth the trip for me. I will start my bluegill quest with this big bull being number 1; so now I only have 99 more to land. I did catch half dozen really small bluegills as stated earlier with this same nymph. All the hits came in 8 to 10 ft. of water proving that nothing is happening around the edge yet, but there is always next week.

 

World Record Striped Bass Landed in Jasper Alabama??

Guys I just had to share this trophy striped bass catch that a local resident caught on the warrior river the other day. There have been some large striped bass landed in the lake I fish here at Smith, but this thing is astounding. It surpassed the world record by 3 lbs. Check out the article on how he landed it.

Dora’s James Bramlett landed this 70-pound striped bass while fishing on the Black Warrior River on Feb. 28. On Tuesday, the fish was declared a world record. AP photo

DORA AL. — James Bramlett’s phone has been ringing like a tambourine at a hootenanny since he landed Walker County’s version of Moby Dick near the Gorgas Steam Plant on the Black Warrior River on Feb. 28. Bramlett, who lives near Dora, normally fishes several times a week, hadn’t wet a hook in a long time, according to his wife, Jan. She had a medical issue and was awaiting major surgery, so he didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone. “I kept after him, until he finally decided to go,” she remembered. On that Thursday, Bramlett was on the water before the roosters crowed and had several nice bass on his stringer that morning. He maneuvered his boat up next to some lily pads and used his trolling motor to maintain position instead of dropping his anchor. A while later he saw a nice fish roll on top of the water, so he pulled out the largest shad in his tank, which was about 12 inches long, and baited his hook. Using a 30-pound test line with his Ambassador 7000 reel, he lobbed the line to the spot where he saw the fish. He felt the fish take the bait. “The line coming off that reel sounded like an electric Weed Eater,” he said. The bass headed for deeper water and he pulled Bramlett’s boat along with him. The fight took them toward the middle of the river. “When I looked up, I saw a tugboat headed toward me pushing an empty barge.”Normally that would be a big problem, but fortunately the tugboat operator saw what was happening and cut the motor, bringing the barge to a stop. The crew of the tug knew it was a big fish and they cheered Bramlett as he did battle with the bass. After more than 20 minutes, the fish began to tire and Bramlett managed to get him close enough to see. “I looked at my landing net and I knew it was useless. So I put the butt of the rod against my stomach, and held it with my left hand while I used my right hand to unlatch the keepers on my gaff.” He slid the hook of the gaff underneath the lip of the bass and managed to drag it in the boat. “I knew it was a big fish,” he said. Bramlett felt like he had a record fish even before he weighed it on the ancient scales at Gross Fishing Camp in Parrish. He put the fish on the scale and kept bumping the counterweight down the measurement bar until it rested on 69 pounds. Those scales weren’t certified, but he knew the fish was big enough to snag a state record, set in 1959, by 15 pounds. The fish was weighed on certified scales and officials from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources listed the official weight as 69.98 pounds. The fish is 45.5 inches long and has a 37.75 inch girth. Bramlett learned Tuesday that his trophy striped bass surpassed the world record of 67 pounds, 8 ounces set in 1992. When asked if he would have the fish on his wall, he said ‘no.’ “The fish will be mounted, but I’m not sure where it will end up. I like looking at the pictures much better,” he said. Bramlett will go down in history as holding the world record for the largest striped bass.

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The Short Journey Back as Oppose to The Long Journey There!!

Guys I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back home after a 3 day 36 hour drive out to Marysville California. I never realized what a killer trip it would be when I told my son a couple of week’s ago that I would help him make the drive. We spent three days riding through extreme wind, sleet, heavy rain and lots of snow in Flagstaff and the mountains in California. In fact we were lucky to even get out of the Flagstaff Friday morning because of heavy snow. Let’s just say it was a trip that I will never forget; but parents will do most anything for their children and I am one of those parents. Jason owes his Dad a lot of fishing trips in the northern California streams after this journey. One of the highlights of the trip aside from the area that Jason will be working in is meeting one of my blogging buddies Mark of Northern California Trout he came up and we did lunch together on Saturday. Mark is one of those guys you feel like you have known for years. He and I pretty much covered the gambit of fly fishing over lunch. I hope things will worked out for us to meet again this summer when my wife and I fly out to visit Jason. This trip has kind of put a damper on my blogging for this past week, but I am back now and ready to read some interesting fish tails. I missed all you guys!!

 

One can't make a really quality picture with your vehicle moving, but this is an image of what we viewed from Northern Texas Oklahoma, Mexico, and most of Arizona. In fact, traveling 1-40 all the way to Flagstaff was summed up in that image above "desert".  When we entered Flagstaff we saw some beautiful country.

Lots of snow-capped Mountains

Not use to driving in snow like this, if you are from the South

Wind turbines are really big in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and California

 

 

 

Three Day Road Trip to California



Today I am watching a light snow fall the first week of March in Jasper Alabama. That kind of weather is a little odd for this part of the country this time of the year. The temps never got out of the 30’s all day and for me that is stay inside weather. It gave me a chance to put together a collection of flies for my son to use when he moves to California next week. I will be making the trip with him to help out with the driving. It is a 3 day trip from Jasper to Marysville California, where he will be working as a travel RN for the next 3 months. After that assignment he will move to Oregon to do another 3 month stint. I am hoping he will find Dad some good streams to fish when my wife and I make the trip out there this summer. He will work a four day week so he said he will have time to explore. One of the flies I put in his fly box was the Auseable Bomber by Mark at Fishing Small Streams.  

A great dry dropper setup--I will have to give it a try as a stand alone dry also



 

Another pattern that I will put in his fly box is the Bomber pattern that Alan of  Small Streams Reflections fishes. I consider Alan and Mark experts when it comes to fishing dry flies--so any dry they are fishing I am on!!!



I have actually fished Alan's  Bomber this past season and landed a number of rainbows using it without a dropper fly. In fact my profile image is one of the best rainbows I landed last year using Alan’s Bomber.

Alan's Bomber worked magic with this bow.

I couldn’t end today’s post without sharing a clip using the dry/dropper setup. This will be one of the first setups I use this season

 

I plan on taking lots of photos on the way out, and hope to share some with you guys when I get back next weekend-----