High Sticking in Pocket Water

I wanted to try my new furled leader out today, so no generating and off I went to the Sipsey. I forgot it was a holiday weekend, so that explained all the vehicles in the parking area and on the side of the road for a weekday. This didn’t discourage me, because I knew exactly what I was going to do; use the high sticking method on some of the pocket water I normally fish with a mono leader mending technique. 

The video below shows some of the trout I landed using the High Sticking technique in this one particular hole which is about 5 ft. deep. A couple of boulders on both sides of the hole caused fast current in the seam and at the end of the hole, a swirl of back current creates the pocket. By starting the nymph drifting at the mouth of the hole, through the middle and into the back swirl; I got the maximum attention of the trout, which were settled in a depth of 4 to 4 ½ ft. I was using a 6 ft. furl leader with 5 ft. of 6X tippet, the tippet was the part of the leader that got the work. The water was super clear, so the lighter tippet made for more action.

P.S. I am using a new program call Handbrake to increase the volume on my videos now, it works great and I hope this is an improvement from my volume in the filleting video.

I'll use today’s trip as another learning experience in my quest to become a better trout fisherman!!  

Prepping for my 2016 Bluegill Quest

I spent most of the day Tuesday on Walker County Lake trying to land some super size gills. The weather didn’t disappoint with sunny skies warm temps; the only downer was tremendous wind out of the south for the better part of the day. In fact, the wind was so strong I spent the majority of my time fishing up and down the levee where I could avoid the wind gust.

The levee had fish on it in the form of the native Red-Eyed Bass, and some nice bluegill that wouldn’t make the quest but provide some nice table fare.

I was not surprised that there was activity on top in the 62-degree water because last year I landed Red Eye Bass here in 58-degree water. They nailed the Bullet Boogle Bug popper often throughout the day; a lot of fun on the 4 weight.

This is a beautiful lake in the early spring, but it turns nasty and in fact, downright ugly when the fertilizing starts. I only have 4 or 5 weeks to fish it before it turns slim green like pea soup.

This was a colorful gill but it won’t make the cut for the quest. I landed numerous bluegills today but all were too small to count. I did bring home eight for a fish fry. The bluegill above produced four fillets. (A future post on how to get four fillets from a bluegill this size) Notice the rubber legs of the Bullet Boggle sticking out of its mouth. This was the only bluegill on top, all the rest were taken on the Black Gnat. Today was a good start for good things to come from this lake.