I know all of us who fly fish have had days when you ask
yourself, could it get any better than today? Well a couple of Wednesdays back
I kept asking myself that very question. There was only one other fisherman in the
gouge that day fishing in the 50 degree water with a gusting wind from the north at
10 to 15 mph. Lucky for me the wind was blowing with the current making a drift
much easier. I had 2 ½ hours to complete my mission today and I wanted to make
the most of the trip. So I made a beeline for one of my favorite holes that
always seem to have a good rainbow. Little did I know that today those good
rainbows would be some of the best trout that I’ve ever landed on the Sipsey. Numerous
trout were taken today using the bead-head nymph.
Some weeks ago I landed a number of trout with damaged
gill plates; this trout today had a red nick on its outer gill plate.
The videos below sums up the action for the afternoon; trout landed about every 10 to 15 minutes. I started the trip without my
Contour Video camera, but the action was so good, I decided to walk by to the truck and
get it. I lost a good 20 minutes of fishing time, but I made up for it after I got
back to the gorge and started landing rainbow again.
Sorry the sound didn’t record for this video, don’t know
why---I added some music that I thought might complement the action of this
trout.
This video is a little long because it took me quite a
while to land this rainbow. I was using a 6X tippet in the super clear water. This
fish is one of the best I’ve ever landed on the Sipsey. One will land more
trout here if they use a lighter tippet. I hope you guys enjoy it!
My first trip to SmithLake this morning had a slow start; no bite for an hour. The Boggle Poppers
were not working at daylight near the banks; so Ivan and I decided to move into
the nooks. I had to use my trolling motor to get us in a position to fish the
nooks because the starter on my Mercury motor went out right after we launched
the boat, bummer. Once we made it to the first nook the action started with
some nice bluegills landed and the prize of the morning for me. I managed to
get some footage of Ivan’s fish of the morning so we both left the lake, happy
fishermen.
When larger poppers are not producing, go to tiny poppers; you will get a reaction!
You guys have read some of
my posts concerning the Red-eyed Bass; well this bass is the best example I’ve
ever caught. This bass was a native to the tributaries flowing into the Sipsey before the dam was placed for Smith Lake.
This spot was supposed to be
caught using my 6 weight fast action, but no bass would touch the big poppers
throughout the morning. So Ivan and I decided to go after the bluegills with our
3 weights using our tiny poppers; little did we know that the bass was turned
on to size 12 poppers as well. This is the largest spot I’ve ever landed using
my 3 weight fly. I had quite a fight on my hands trying to keep this fish from
breaking my 5X tippet. This fish is why I love fly fishing so much because it's
you against a fish that is superior to your gear, in this case, my 3 weight.
Sometimes the fish wins and rightly so and sometimes the fisherman wins, today I
won. Ivan didn't notice the sun rays crossing my face when he took the picture.
Ivan landed this nice spot
somewhat quicker than me using his 4 weight. I thought I would get some of the
action on video for you guys. Ivan did a great job handling this spot,
especially after it made numerous runs to break off. We were both pleased with
the trip even if I did have to spend 225.00 bucks on a new starter for my
motor.
As I get older I have become more aware of the damage the sun can have on
your skin. When I was younger I would fish all day wearing a short-sleeve
shirt, shorts, flip flops, and a cap. The sun would blister me the first
couple of outings but after that my skin was so brown I hardly ever got a sunburn the rest of the season. I was lucky I didn’t contract Melanoma in those
early years. Nowadays I battle the sun's rays by wearing a long sleeve shirt,
long pants, vented hat, vented shoes, and finger exposed sun gloves. All these
products are listed below, with links to the website.
I wanted to fish the
Sipsey yesterday before the rains that afternoon. Generation was scheduled at 3PM so that gave me about 3 hours to wet a fly. Never
think especially on the Sipsey that you’re going to land trout on the same
pattern day in and day out there; yesterday proved that statement correct. I
went through numerous nymph patterns with no success. After exhausting my
options I tied on an orange nymph Alan of Small Stream Reflections had mailed me sometime back. I kept
trying to figure out what this pattern duplicated in the insect world while I
was casting it. After I got home I googled orange nymphs and found the Milkweed
Assassin Bug. Strange I didn’t see any such bug while I was fishing but this
little orange nymph proved a winner today.
The Milkweed Bug and the
Red Ant
The third cast in a slow
run produced this healthy rainbow using Alan’s orange bug.
There must be a clan of
these damaged gill plate trout in the Sipsey, or I am landing the same trout
every time I fish this place.
Super clear fast water
pouring into small pockets held the trout below; the orange bug continued
to work its magic.
Never overlook any fly in
the box; high sticking the little orange bug worked in the small pockets. Who knows
what pattern will be hot on my next outing here.
I started by bluegill quest this past Tuesday
with early morning temps in the mid-forties, quite chilly. Overcast skies kept
the temperature cool most of the morning, but it didn’t affect the bluegill
bite. I had the lake to myself for a couple of hours, which is always a plus
when fishing WalkerCountyLake. As I have told you guys numerous times this is one of the most pressured
small lakes in the state. My plan was to fish the east side of the lake where
there is no access for bank fishermen. I know where most of the spawning beds
are located year in and out on this lake; today held no surprises for me. What
did surprise me was most all the spawning beds were void of fish. At my first
stop, I counted close to 40 beds, after I landed 3 nice bluegills.
The sweet spot on this
bank was located near the fallen log lying in the water. The bluegills had clean
out close to 40 spawning beds to the right and left of the log.
The first gill of the
morning, which nailed an Orvis size 12 legless tiny popper; a lot of fun on the 3 weight.
This fish loved the little popper, the very next cast produce another strong fish which hung my
little popper and the fish in a tangled mess of underwater brush; so much for
that popper. Wouldn’t you know it that
was the only one in the fly box, another trip to Orvis?
Another group of gills
was located at the end of this moss pad in deeper water; again lots of spawning
beds but only a few bluegills left to fish for. The live bait guys did a great
job plucking each and every bluegill out of their beds.
The Bar Nunn popper got
the attention of this bull after my little Orvis popper bites the dust. I was
able to land a number of bluegill from the moss pad area that someone actually
left for me. As I moved from spawning beds to spawning beds I felt like I was
cleaning up what was left of this spawn.
This guy was having a time
landing catfish using chicken livers as bait. In fact, he was hauling one in
when I snapped this picture. He had 7 or 8 rigs all hanging over the edge of
the boat.
I left all my drinking water at the
house so I had to make a trip to the bait shop and purchase a couple of
bottles. As I was leaving the shop I noticed this lady painting a beautiful scene
of the point area in the distance. She told me she had finished a number of paintings
of the lake this past year.
The Pelican now has padded seats as opposed to those hard plastic seats I used for a couple of years.
This is the 10 ft. version and will handle two fly fishermen really well-------as
long as my line is down on the water and their line is up in the air or vice
versa---I think you guys know what I am talking about!!
These are the best of the
best for a very successful morning; these 10 will put a dent in my bluegill quest. I
added 8 more that kept me filleting bluegill for a couple of hours after I got
home. I will go after the big bulls on SmithLake next week. I am now 40 away from my 50 quests; could this be my year to
make it???
I spent last weekend
in Mississippi visiting my brother and his wife. Thank goodness this trip occurred before my fall at
the gym on the following Monday. My brother wanted to spend
Saturday revising some of the boyhood places we fished in ChoctawCounty, Mississippi which is where we were born. We find as we get older
we like going back in time and reliving those moments in our lives. Our main
objective this trip was to connect with some of the streams we fished years ago
and hopefully find new ones that could be fished with the fly rod. Sorry to say
we didn’t find any small stream that a fly rod would work well on; so on to our
backup plan which enabled us to use our low-grade Tenkara rods. When I say low
grade that doesn’t mean this rod is cheap in the form of performance but cheap
in the wallet. We paid ten bucks each for our Little Jewel telescopic 10 ft.
bream poles on clearance last year. These little light rods were the perfect
match for the small streams we found throughout the afternoon.
Fast water drops off into
a nice pool here, which had numerous shiners that inhaled our wax worms. The
Little Jewel was rigged with a 4lb test line tagged with a trout indicator float
and a bb shot above a tiny bream hook. We were hoping to land some colorful sunfish, but none were present in this pool.
The wax worm doubles as a
wasp grub; making these shiners take notice. One big drawback to using wax worms
is temperature, they need to be kept in the refrigerator when not being used;
they die when exposed to warm temps for 4 to 5 hours.
Some of the roadways are
lined with creek channels which overflow across the gavel roads during the
rainy season.
Nice hole in the bend of
Hamrick Branch, which is located right off the Natchez Trace Parkway; fun using the Little Jewel in this pool. Even small
shiners can put a bend in this pole.
Another scenic stream off
the Natchez
Trace Parkway, which probably could have been fished with the fly rod, but at the
end of the day I just choose to stay with my newfound Tenkara.
This stream is located
just off the parkway with easy access to its sandbars along its banks. Today’s
road trip was not about landing a bunch of fish; it was more about time well
spent exploring and finding future fishing streams along the beautiful Natchez
Trace Parkway. As we headed back home we both agreed that today’s outing would
have been an excellent field trip for young kids to get in touch with nature.
Thanks to all you guys for giving me encouragement after my fall last week, the ankle is getting better.
Cold fronts, rain, and high
winds have kept me off the lakes for the past week so the Sipsey was my go-to fishing
fix. The deep runs of the Sipsey were my target for the afternoon trip. With my
9 ft. 3 weight Streamflex in hand I proceeded to wade up the gorge towards the
deep channel of the Sipsey. I was rigged
with my dry dropper, in the form of an Adam with a size 18 Midge.
Boulders and logs dot the bottom in this deep run providing an excellent ambush area for trout to feed.
A hungry midge feeder
Lots of patience and a
slow drift was the key to get takes today. The trout were not interested in the
dry and were hitting the midge light. At times the take was so light I missed numerous hook sets.
The midge bite slowed so
the bead-head nymph took over at the end of the trip. The partial gill plate didn’t
stop this bow from attacking the nymph as it floated over a submerged log.
I am thankful I made this
trip last week because I had a mishap at the gym Monday that will keep me off
the tailrace for some time. I fell leaving the platform area where I walk on the
treadmills. I wasn’t watching what I was doing and missed the last step on
the platform and turned my ankle and sprained my wrist; both are kind of black
and blue. The trainer told me I would not be able to walk on the treadmill for
weeks, so staying off this ankle is going to be a boring experience for me. He
said the less walking I can do the faster the ankle will heal; really a stupid
thing I did, but I have realized I need to pay closer attention to steps from
now on.
Antiques have always fascinated Cathey and me.
We started collecting antique furniture right after we were married, mainly
because we couldn’t afford the high prices of new furniture at the time. We
would visit flea markets and find a piece that needed some work and
refinishing, bring it home and turn it into a treasure for our house. We were
told early on by antique dealers if we changed the cosmetics of the pieces that
it would decrease the value of the furniture. The decrease in value didn’t
bother us because we wanted something that looked nice and could be restored close
to its original appearance. At times we would find a gem in antique shops that
needed work and get it at a reasonable price; which was the case of the chester drawers we found in a
MurfreesboroTennessee antique shop back in December of 2015.
I knew this piece was old but didn’t realize the
age range until I got it home and did some research through Google. Sorry, I don’t
have an image of the appearance of the chester drawers when we
bought it. The structure of this piece was good, but the dark aged varnish,
broken pieces of veneer on the top and drawer fronts, really turned customers off.
This is what it looks like now after I sanded it back to its original wood at
the time it was built.
Some work had to be done
to get the drawers to fit back flush around the drawer rims, but that was minor
compared to getting all the broken veneer off the piece.
Lots of wood species were
used back in the early days of furniture building. Poplar, pine, ash, and maple
were the woods that were used together to construct a piece of
furniture in the early days. As is the case here in this piece, pine was used
for the drawer fronts, and poplar was used for the top, sides, legs, and drawers
rims for this piece. Walnut, oak, mahogany, and cherry were seldom
used together in the construction of furniture in the early days. Those woods were rare and not as plentiful as the ordinary woods. If one found antique furniture in the rare woods you could expect to pay much more money for those pieces.
I didn’t realize the
beauty of the top until I removed all the dark varnish. It was solid popular in
excellent condition, now back to its original appearance at construction.
What really attracted me
to this chester drawers in the antique shop were the joints used for the construction of the drawers? I knew these dovetail joints were
used in early furniture construction but didn’t realize they dated back to the
late 1700s. This is not your common dovetail joint which was commonly used
throughout the 1800s and even in today’s furniture construction. This dovetail
joint was the first used in furniture construction back in colonial days; quite
a find for fifty bucks!!!
Stay tuned for its progress
as Cathey will apply the stain and varnish to finish it.
Image of the same type dovetail joint of a
drawer constructed in the 1700s