Starting My Bluegill Quest for 2014

Well after weeks of trying to find someone to manage Walker County Lake; the Game and Fish Department in Montgomery found their guy. He opened the lake Friday for the first day of fishing and there were a lot of fisherman including me glad to be there. This lake has some of the largest bluegills I have ever landed, and today I was hoping I would connect with a few.

This bench will be occupied in the coming weeks as the weather warms.

I was anxious to try out my new Pelican 10 ft. boat. I sold my 8 ft. Pelcian back in January to make room with this boat for my grandson and his Dad on future fishing trips. What impresses me about this model is how stable the boat is even when one is standing and casting.

My first bluegill of the season, not the big bull I am accustom to, but a good fight on the 4 weight.

This one almost qualified for the goal this year of 50 super size bull bluegills during the spawning season. Notice I said 50, my wife retired in December, and she informed me the other day that we were going to be traveling during the spring and summer months. I would say between the traveling and fishing my bluegill goal will be cut from my previous 100 goal in years past to my goal of 50 for this year. 

Nice female at one of the areas where these fish spawn every year. The water temp was too cold for any top action. The super nymph was my go to fly today it worked well in depths 6 to 8 ft.

This little bass nailed the nymph really close to the dock, just as I was getting ready to take out. The wind today made for some innovative casting and also gave me a severe sinus infection. It will take me the better part of the week to recover, but still the trip was worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Stolen Fly Rods and Fly Reels Recovered

The detective that was handling my thief case concerning my fly fishing equipment called me Thursday morning. He wanted me to come down to the police station Friday and identify some fly fishing rods and reels he had recovered from a house in a county north of the county I live in. Naturally I was at the station at 8 AM Friday, ready to take a look at the equipment. I was thrilled and kind of disappointed at the same time because what I found was two of my Redington fly rods and two fly reels those being my Redington 2/3 wt. and one of my prized Gloomis fly reels 3/4 wt. What I was hoping I would find was my Greys Streamflex 3 wt. with the Gloomis 3/4 fly reel, but I was still happy they recovered the two I took back home with me.

There was an article in our local paper a couple of weeks ago concerning an elderly couple who lived in downtown Jasper that had their house burglarized. This happened when they were at a friend’s house one weekday morning two weeks ago. The thieves stole over 15,000.00 dollars of antique glassware. The police in Jasper working with the Winston county police department discovered that this burglary and others that were occurring in the area was a huge theft ring operating in three counties in around the walker county where we live.

There was a search warrant issued to search a house in a neighboring county, who they believed belong to one of the thieves. Upon entering the house they found most of the glassware, and numerous other items that had be stolen the past couple of months. The individual who lived in the house was not there. My fly fishing equipment was found in that house with all the other stolen items. The police are still investigating the case and hopefully some more of my equipment will be recovered soon.

The handle on my 7 ½ ft. fly rod looks like a mouse had nibbled on the cork. The fly rod was found in a closet in this run down house out in a wooded area some miles away from town.

I was especially pleased to get my 8 ½ 3 wt with my Gloomis 3/4 reel. These reels are hard to find and when one goes up for auction on Ebay it is gone in a matter of days. I am very lucky to have recovered any of my fishing equipment and I hope my Greys is the fly rod they find.

 

 

 

 

My Best Day Ever Dry Fly Fishing on the Sipsey Tailrace

When I left the house today at 12:30 I knew I was going to be nymph fishing at access five on the tailrace. I also thought I knew the generation schedule, but when I arrived at the parking lot I saw that the water was high. I don’t like to fish high water on the tailrace, but I was here so I thought I would make the best of the trip.

This area today was too deep to wade; it is usually a 10 ft. wide shallow wade through with plenty of room for backcasting. Notice the guy in the shorts, that tells you it was quite warm for March here today at 71. This guy had a buddy up the channel fishing the spin-cast. He and his buddy will play a role in today’s post as I fish through some of my favorite spots up the channel.

I was really surprised to find water I could wade at access six, and even more surprised to find a small hatch just above the water surface. If you look closer you can see some surface ripples in the deeper section of this stretch. As I waded to the huge rock boulder I kept looking to the right and left and discovered I was all by my lonesome. The surface activity causes me to change from my Prince Nymph to a 16 Adams.

My second cast at 2:30 produced this rainbow, my first trout after an hour of filtering through higher water. Notice the shoes in the picture, this is the guy at the first access point I met when I arrived. He and his buddy had followed me to this area. They both told me that they were from Birmingham and were new to the tailrace and hadn’t caught anything. They said they were trying to land enough trout for a dinner meal. 

As the hatch pick up motion the bite did too, so I tied on a smaller pattern in the form of a Renegade size 18 dry. I landed a couple more trout in this same area that missed the camera shot before this image shot. My two newfound buddies fishing above me kept watching as I landed numerous trout using the dry, and one suddenly asks if they could have some of my catch to carry with them. They still had not landed a trout so I agreed to let them have what I thought would be seven or eight trout for the afternoon. So for the next couple of hours, they would come over and remove my trout for me and put them on their stringer. It was not that these guys were not trying to catch fish on their own, using spinners, but for some reason, they couldn’t muster a bite; so I became their ticket to supper, which I didn’t mind.

I worked this trout onshore so my buddies could handle it better. I am amazed at the surface activity at this point.

Another trout made easy for the guys. I am not taking pics of all the trout I am landing as I move slowly up and down a 100 ft. stretch. The guys are now wading out to met me in their shorts to get my trout and carefully remove them from my net; with every trout given they thank me repeatedly.

Now I am seeing more of a hatch and the trout are feeding at a fast pace in the front and to both sides of me.  I can’t remember seeing this much surface activity ever on the tailrace. I know I am now well over ten because that is the number I have given my buddies who are getting ready to leave. The limit per person on the tailrace is five, so with their limit, they thank me again and left.

I have now moved closer to the dam where there is more shade, which is where I pick this guy up. I noticed that if I used a delicate surface presentation with my fly I tend to get the take much faster. At this point, I am landing trout about every three or four casts. The hatch is still going strong.

The Renegade is located in the top of part of the trout’s mouth; I notice that all the trout with the fly taken in the top part of the mouth were the ones that really exploded on the surface to take the dry.

I am now down to my last two Renegades, with this trout landed. I have lost 3 two in trees and one on a break off in water too deep to retrieve from a limb. My catch lost ratio is still on the plus side, but is fading with numbers of fish missing the fly.

The hatch at this point is winding down and this was one of my last to inhale the Renegade. I am standing near the dam at 5:30 PM and it is really overcast. With the forecast for tomorrow being 10 to 20-mile hr. winds and turning cold with temps in the 30's Wednesday night---could this be why I am having this kind of success???

This fatty was my last trout of the day. It ended with what I like to think was my most explosive take of the afternoon. At this point, the hatch was over for a lot of trout with full bellies.

The water level was getting close to normal as I made way up to the stairs. In 15 minutes the generators would be pumping full blast.

The long walk up these stairs and back to the truck was worth it for me today, because I like to think on an afternoon such as this, the fishing Gods had to be with me.

FINALLY My First Fishing Trip for 2014

I have been waiting for that so called perfect day to kick off my 2014 fishing season. Well Sunday was close to perfect on the Sipsey Tailrace. The temperature couldn’t have been better at a warm 70 degrees with a slight breeze out of the northeast. The approaching cold front on Monday was an added bonus as well. We were expecting temperatures in the mid twenties Monday night. That is usually the case for early spring in the deep south this time of the year, warm one day and frigid cold the next day.

I had plenty of company from the pump station all the way up to the dam. Nine vehicles were in the parking lot which meant I would encounter a bunch of fly fishermen when I got to the water.

High dingy water was flowing from the dam with no trout rising at all which kind of dampened my spirits. All the usual hot spots were taken, so I settled for an area I had not fished in a couple of years.

 

My first trout of the 2014 season, which took a super nymph on an extremely slow, retrieve. I encounter numbers of short takes before I finally got a solid take from this trout. I was using my new Grey’s Hardy 9 ft. 3 wt. with my Gloomis free spool reel. I have found that the best weight fly rod for this tailrace is as 3 weight, anything above that would be over kill.

The Seal Leech was the prey for this nice bow that nailed the fly less than 7 ft. from me. I had fisherman to the right and to the left of me the couple hours I fished. There was no escaping the crowd today. I was really surprised I was landing trout with the amount of fishing pressure here today.

The renegade was the only dry that produced today.  The dry action was not explosive; but hey I will take this size trout all day on the 3 weight.

I ended the trip with this colorful rainbow which went airborne a couple of times. I feel good about today’s trip because it forced me to forego some of my usual hot spots for a couple of areas I seldom fish. So I guess I could say I have discovered some new water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memories, Ponds and Graveyards

This past week I spent a couple of days with my brother and his wife in Mississippi. Sorry to say it was not a fishing trip. The purpose of the visit was to clean up an old Trussell cemetery that was located in the back woods of Choctaw County in the Northeastern part of the state. We spent the better part of the morning moving small trees and brush from the 15 ft. by 30 ft. area. The cemetery is actually where my Great Great Grandpa is buried with his wife, one of their sons, and three other unknown individuals. Their graves only had rock markers with no names. During that day and time, the cemetery was usually located near the home.

We used marker tape to fence off the perimeters of the area so the timber company wouldn’t destroy the place later this summer. We will go back in a few weeks to place a permanent enclosure around the area. The graves date back to the 1840s.

This is a long inscription here on my Grandpa’s grave describing what he expected in the here after.

While we were in the area we decided to ride by our old home place about 10 miles from the cemetery. The house was located on this hill. We were both raised up here as boys and had fond memories of fishing in the pond that was located down below our house.

It had been over 40 years since my brother and I had seen this pond. A lot had changed as far as the area itself, but the memories remained where we went swimming, caught some of those large bass and super size bluegills. This pond is where Dad taught my brothers and me to fish.

I can still see my Mom landing huge bluegills using green grasshoppers that my younger brother and I would catch for her to bait the hook. We would bait the hook for her and she would let us land the fish. We were no more than 5 years old. A long cane pole taught me the art of playing a fish then.

The spring that feeds cold clear water into the pond was still pumping. We drink a lot of water from this spring over the years while fishing on those hot summer days. I know one can never go back in time, but if I could this would be one place I would surely visit.

Snow, Nymphs, Reels, and Fly Rods

I don’t know about you guys but I am beyond ready to get on the water.  I can’t wait to try some of the Super Nymphs that Luke over at “The Young Man and the Stream” mailed me last week. He did an exceptional job at the bench. Thanks Luke for helping me replace the last batch of flies that was stolen from me back in December. I found out last year that this fly is not only an awesome bluegill pattern, but a killer trout fly as well.



  Luke threw in three extra flies that will be tested early this season. I am impressed with double bead eyes not only for the weight factor, but the attention these flies will get from the bass and bluegills.

My new 8 ½  3wt. Tempt Redington fly rod with the matching 2/3 Redington reel will be perfect to fight some of the trout on the tailrace in the next couple of weeks. I lost this same combo in the burglary.

We seldom get snow this far south, but this year was an unusual year for bitter cold and yes snow. Bring on Spring!!!