A good friend of mine, of the geek variety, recently took up fly fishing. He has taken to the sport pretty quickly and has been on more fishing trips in the past week then I have been on in the last month. Needless to say all this time in water has allowed his cast to develop and he is quickly up to speed and will be able to hold his own in the very near future I am sure. I picked up some waders for John (great last minute decision on his part) and in the process bought a Sage Smallmouth rod. I was going to use my usual 6wt setup for the trip but we were in need of another heavier rod for summer fishing and once picking it up both my wife and I really started to like how the rod felt. I really wanted a shorter rod and the extra oomph this rod brings to the table with its custom line (to turn over bass flies) make the package a compelling buy. I really like the look of the rod and ended up buying a Sage 1680 since the store was out of Konics. I don’t really love the reel, especially the look, but for the money the reel will do well for how we plan to use it.
We left Oklahoma City at 5AM headed towards Rock Creek in the Chickasaw National Wildlife Refuge for some smallmouth fishing. Within the first few minutes of wading in I hooked up with a small largemouth on my new toy and asked John to come over and take a nice gear shot only to find that I forgot to put the battery in the camera in my 5AM haze. Usually this is a good sign and means I will catch some good fish, but unfortunately this wasn’t to be the case and while fish were caught nothing of any size ended up going after our flies. Rock Creek, which isn’t talked about much, has a lot of potential and I know I will be hitting it again in the next month to hopefully find some of the smallmouth I have heard about living there. I was hoping to catch one of the carp my friend Barry has tangled with, but I stumbled upon one and spooked another by dropping the fly a little to close for its comfort.
After spending the morning on Rock Creek we headed to the Blue to hopefully find the elusive smallmouth. The fishing was even slower for us. I haven’t spent nearly enough time fishing the Blue for bass to know all the hot spots, but I have a feeling the fishing was pretty slow in general. Not battling the crowds during trout season was a nice change, but the summer crowd seems to like getting in tubes and floating through areas you are about to cast to. I guess they weren’t flycasters. I hooked up with some bass and missed a few more, but I did get to toss the whole line with the new bass rod while standing on crossing by area one. Wow does that rod just want to go. I think this rod is going to be a great tool for windy days and will become one of my favorite rods this summer.
Overall it was a pretty feeble attempt at getting into more southeastern Oklahoma warmwater fishing, but I think after a few more trips I will get more into the vibe and get a better feeling for the holes that hold fish. Fishing is better than not fishing, whether you’re catching or not.
May 18th, 2008