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Where the Buffalo Roam

2008-07-06T03:48:00Z

Or bison, as many people keep correcting me. Whatever you call them, they are big.

I spent the weekend with Angler John in the The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. This is a really neat place in southwest Oklahoma near John’s hometown. The area is packed with lakes big and small, and it’s a really neat place to go for a few days if you just want to fish and not worry about catching anything you want to brag about.

I wish I would have gotten an up close and personal shot, but when John told me about a few overturned cars, I decided to take it easy and try and not startle one of the bulls, who seem just as big as my WRX.

This is a trip that will have lots of memories specifically one that included watching out for these beasts:

The refuge is apparently the only place in the country where longhorns run wild. I would be pretty scared of one of these things behind a fence, let alone allowed ones that roam and scare the shit out of you by being all sneaky.

We ended up getting up close and personal with one of these bovine when hiking back from hitting the shallows of the most trophy of bluegill fisheries I had ever been on. We were a few feet from this particular cow when it decided to get up and I decided to bolt, leaving John behind to decide to run or play dead (he chose the former.) I am glad he was behind since he saw me drop my only C&F box. I didn’t give a shit about the flies inside, but I risked a goring to get back this box I got on sale and love so much. It was great fun throwing poppers to frisky males full of color on a 4wt. Lake Elmer Thomas is amazingly clear and perhaps the clearest Lake I have seen in Oklahoma in years.

Today we hit 3 lakes Jed Johnson, Quanah Parker, and ended the day going dual in the Native on Elmer Thomas for some late afternoon bluegill. I lucked out since it was John’s first time in the yak and he decided to paddle more than fish and I was able to close out the day on a high note with a small largemouth.

John spent most of the day in his recently gifted tube. I was around a bend when it happened, but John, who is just starting out, laid into what he described as “one of those TV fish.” I was padding fast far away when it happened, but I did hear him scream. It didn’t sound much like drowning and was around the bend when it happened, so I didn’t stop to see what all the fuss was about. John has his first real fish story with no visual confirmation in picture or fishing buddy form. I think this should happen to everyone. It sucks, but at the end it’s what makes fishing such a personally gratifying endeavor.

It was a long day and half, and despite the baked skin and brush with death by longhorn, a really memorable one for the stories and the scenery. My arm’s sore from constantly trying to speed John up by pushing him around with my kayak, but that’s what friends are for. With this kind of scenery, taking it slow its what it’s all about.

Fish were caught. All of small stature.

2008-06-08T18:22:00Z

Pennington Creek and The Blue were both a little high, but fish were caught though all were small. Catching is better than not, and given the rough work week a lot of hiking and a decent amount of fish caught and lost, it was a nice outing.

I started my excursion south of the hatchery seeing some nice rises from the local inhabitants and almost stepping a huge Koi that I wish I had seen in the high water. Unfortunately the wading south was getting tough and high so I had to turn back to north where I had been before.

While getting above these falls I took a nice flip and crashed down on my new Sage Smallmouth Rod. I almost cried as this rod is becoming my favorite rod, and while not all the casts are pretty, you can do some crazy things with the rod, and for up close and personal settings it is deadly accurate. The rod was fine but the cheap Sage reel I bought to go on it is not and has a nice tick sound as the spool catches on the frame. Since the spools are cheap I will try to throw one on it and see what happens, but if not I will chalk this up to why I like my more pricey not-cast reels as they have taken lots of similar spills and only came out with battle scars.

There are a few nice holes that were made nicer by the higher water and I there was lots of water to fish. In the whole where I caught my first smallmouth I also caught my first catfish on the fly.

Little did I know that I would follow up this one with a few more in this hole and a ton more on my way hiking out. The Near Nuff Crayfish I was throwing them must have been like candy. A few small largemouth and gorgeous bluegill that I really should have snapped a pic of were released as well. I went home defeated as I wanted to reacquaint with the smallmouth from last fall from the same pool as the catfish, but it was not to be.

After a nice lunch and some rest at the family get together I set in for a long hike into the southern wilderness area of the Blue. Perhaps it was the heat and higher water, but I only caught one small smallmouth and the Blue’s nasty rocks claimed several of the flies I had tied less than 24 hours before. Hopefully when the Blue is down and I hit it in the morning instead of heat of the day I will get my first Blue smallmouth. I love all this warmwater fishing and the crazy amount of miles I am covering finding good water, but I long for the cool water of a trout stream with my 4wt in hand.

Fishing with John

2008-05-18T21:07:00Z

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.

Yaks Ahoy

2008-04-14T04:34:00Z

It was a long day and there was a bit of a crisis with the mounting of the yaks but it all worked out great in the end. After putting the first yak on the Hull Raiser Aeros all of us sat around shaking our heads knowing this wasn’t going to be a good solution for these yaks and my car. Luckily the great team at Lewis & Clark Outfitters scrambled and worked out a great solution with the Yakima parts they had in stock. I can’t thank the 3 great guys there enough for going out of their way and making us happy customers. We didn’t get a chance to paddle since it was cold and the kids were getting antsy, but they will get their first taste of water tomorrow on Draper.

Only Two Things Missing

2008-04-11T20:38:00Z

Soon. Very soon.

I am going to give a plug for the great people at Rack Attack too. One of my pieces was missing a rubber pad and they overnighted it at no cost with no questions.

Becoming a Yak Person

2008-04-08T18:54:00Z

So a month ago I called the great people at Lewis and Clark Outfitters and ordered 2 Native Ultimate 14.5 Angler models. The boats have been in for almost a week and the whole family will be road tripping it to Springdale Arkansas to pick up our new boats this weekend. I can’t wait to get my hands on them and look forward to all the water that it will open, but the anticipation is killing me. Unfortunately I didn’t think ahead far enough and have had to scramble to get cross bars,Yakima HullRaiser Aeros, as well as some Scotty rod holders. Luckily I ordered the rod holders from Austin Canoe & Kayak and can’t say enough about the service I got from them. I ordered them yesterday, didn’t pay shipping, and I got them today. Having almost all the pieces to the puzzle is wetting my appetite so much that the passing of time seems much slower than normal.

First Carp of the Year

2008-03-22T00:19:00Z

My normal stomping ground was a dud a few weeks ago, but I was hoping with the warmer weather the carp would be a bit more active. Despite the horrible water conditions, two feet above normal and muddy as hell, I was able to find a taker for my crappy crayfish pattern. I got into chasing carp for the sight fishing, but I will take a random hookup any day, especially given the conditions.

Finally made it back to the Blue

2008-02-24T21:52:00Z

Life for the past month has been a little more hectic than normal. Fishing has been on the back burning for almost (or is it over?) a month, but with the trout season soon to be closed at the Blue I had to make it down to take in the C&R area at least once before the season ended. It is a much longer hike than expected, but you can fish some beautiful falls along the way. There are four very fishy falls before the C&R area and it is a good 30 minute walk in if you don’t dilly dally and fish on your way in. Here was a spot where I caught five or six average fish for the Blue.

I love the natural vibe this river has, and its a great departure from the tailwater fishing I normally do for trout. This natural vibe also has some distinct differences from a tailwater. Many of the stretches of water on the Blue are very slow moving and quite deep. A lot of the water is difficult to wade and mainly streamer water, but the falls are always a great place to hang a few short drifts and in the C&R area you can be rewarded with some pulls that are much more authoritative from one of the bigger than average fish in the area. After a day of catching average fish this area is sure to to make any angler crack a grin.

I ended up catching a fair amount of fish which is generally the case on the Blue, but I know I am only scratching the surface and still have many more miles of water to search when the smallmouth get a little more active. Now if I only could figure out how to get the kayaks around all those damn falls.

I hate disposable furniture

2008-02-18T00:51:00Z

The reason I never really tied flies all the time is because as Singlebarbed puts it, I was in phase one of fly tying. I don’t know how deep I will descend into his phases, but I have finally left phase one behind.

Behold.

There are so many things wrong with this desk, but the price was right and it was the right size. I am lucky enough to have an office with my geek desk, but I do have to share it with the treadmill and the some of my kids toys. I had been eying a spot for months in the office occupied by a weight bench and tried to figure out away to get an older desk we have in the garage to fit in the alloted space. I wish it would have fit and I contrived many scenarios in my head of how I could make it work, but alas it was not to be. Minutes after I hung my new brook trout photo where the desk was destined to sit we were in the car on the way to find a cheap desk. The desk I got doesn’t have any storage, but I will make do with bins on the shelves for awhile. I dream of having a nice custom piece of furniture like Singlebarbed, but that will come when the we finally break down and buy a house later this year. I am quite disorganized when it comes to my materials, but I will work it out eventually. For the time being slightly organized chaos will do much better than having to haul my every growing amount of crap out to the kitchen hours before my next outing. Having my vice out all the time will hopefully produce more flies before the spring hits because I need to fill that swanky new box you see.

I have never really liked the fly holding ability of the Fishpond pack so I am replacing the built in foam with interchangeable C&F foam sleeves. I got a very nice gift of an Amazon gift card from a client and was able to buy the system box and three sleeves. One of the sleeves came with a rudimentary plastic sleeve and it fits great in my man purse. I think this will be a much better solution for me as I always seemed to loose flies inside my pack from not getting them seated well. Once I have a better showing of my lack of tying talent I will post a picture. For now its off to tie more tiny flies as I still don’t have the size right for the Lower Illinois. I think they want 24s. Ugh.

Another weekend on the Lower Illinois

2008-01-15T03:49:00Z

For the first time in a few months I had a fishing buddy with me. The fact that the buddy was my wife had me smiling all day. My wife hasn’t gotten out as much as she wanted in her first 6 months of picking up the fly rod and had never landed a trout successfully until last weekend. After a few hints about how to better play the first few fish she lost, she began to out fish me until early evening. Everything came together for her really well this weekend, especially her casting, and throughout our adventure I found myself not paying attention to my drift as much as I should have, I seem to have a wandering eye for the wife. Not a lot of big numbers were caught but it was a solid outing for us both. I caught a pristine wild trout that had some great coloring, a far departure from our normal stockers. I wish we had gotten a close up of the fish, but I let it get away a little too fast. It will be interesting to see what the wild fish look like in a few months, and while I am not catching a wild fish every trip to the Lower Illinois, it is becoming a more frequent occurrence.

The obligatory underwater shot:

I tried some of the new Thingamabobber indicators this weekend. I think they would do well with some of the heavier rigs I can envision using, but I really didn’t like the weight on my 4wt setup and it was difficult casting with a stiff wind.

Blue River Catch and Release Area Opens

2008-01-02T04:33:00Z

A few days ago 1100 Rainbows were released just north of the Highway 7 bridge over the Blue River. This was a very grassroots movement with lots of people contributing time and dollars towards making this happen. Since the Blue River is a seasonal fishery, this area is really a delayed harvest area, but it will be interesting to see how the fish adapt and how big they can get in a few months. Next year should prove very interesting since the fish will get a few more months of education before they are harvested.

I took the family out on a very blustery and short hike yesterday to a lake close to my house to do some scouting. I think we found some good flats for carp, and all my wife can talk about is how much she wants to get a kayak out on almost any water she sees. Maybe I can use her anticipation to convince her to chase some trout this weekend.

Fish were caught on the Lower Illinois

2007-12-27T16:33:00Z

There was nothing spectacular was caught on this trip and overall the fishing was slow, but fish were caught, and they were trout. I did catch this one interesting fish. Should I feel bad for something I just stuck with a hook? I think I did feel for this fish:

I am not sure if a bigger fish got to this one or if he had a stocking accident, but I wish him the best of luck since he is at least eating.

Other than that fish this was really an outing to play with my new toys. I tried out the yellow lenses in my Smiths. Wow is all I can say. I lost track of time and didn’t realize how dark it was getting because everything looked so bright. The vision it gave me into the water was phenomenal given the conditions. The wading jacket worked better than I expected, but I am a sucker for anything with pit zips. I got rained on some and I was dry and warm all day. I think the best aspect of a wading jacket is being able to reach into the water if needed and not worry about getting soaked. I need to practice with my composition, but I did get one ok shot:

I like the reflection aspect of this shot, but I suppose I will get the angles right eventually. I didn’t really fish hard and I didn’t cover much area, but getting out is what is important. It took me a while to find the right fly this time. I went through about 6 before finding the right one, a play on a flashback pheasant tail I tied a few years ago. It was kind odd that it took me so long to find something that worked as I know all of the holes really well in the section and know I was fishing the right depth. I saw a lot of risers that teased me into rigging up a dry fly with an emerger tailing off of it. This is a combination I can’t seem to get right on the Lower Illinois. I am going to actually tie up a few things and see if I can actually land one of the larger browns I have seen hitting the top. Maybe it will yield some better than average fish.

Changing gears this year

2007-12-26T04:55:00Z

As Christmas day rolls around I always find myself on the Blue River. This is prime time for combat fishing for stringers and while that is not appealing to many, it is appealing to my nostalgic side, especially since it is Christmas. The Blue is where I first tossed a fly line and returning there every year during this time is something that feels really good. This year is a little different and we came back instead of staying a few nights. I am quite depressed about not getting the wife out on the Blue for her very first time, but she knows I need to get out and would probably wake up at 5 to kick my ass out the door else she would have to deal with a moppie prick all day.

Tomorrows elements should be better than my last outing and hopefully the catching will be better. I may sacrifice some comfort for some underwater shots with the new camera. I look forward to seeing if wading jackets are all they are cracked up to be as mine should get it’s first downpour in some brutal cold.

Really depressing trip.

2007-12-24T03:17:00Z

Nature is a bitch. A mean and cruel and harsh bitch.

I suppose after so many trout sessions without getting blanked it was bound to happen, even to a guy like me. I was not skunked, but this is all I have to show for freezing my ass off.

So I got up a little later than I usually do to go trout fishing, but by 7 or so I was heading west towards altus and the North Fork of the Red River. I wish I drove past the exit and towards Colorado, New Mexico, anywhere but where I was heading. When I had read that this fishery “Isn’t the Prettiest Trout Stream” I had some pretty low expectations. Western Oklahoma is primarily flat prairie, but tucked in the southwest are a fair number of these:

When I get there it is starting to spit freezing rain and it is in the high 20s and the wind is kicking, thank god I brought my 6wt. As I arrive I see a few bait guys head out from their truck. When I finished bundling up for the elements and switched my new Smiths to the roseish lenses, I see all of the anglers return saying they had caught their one. I went ahead and bet that my best shot was close the the dam; I was kind of chickening out I suppose, but if it got too windy I wanted to have one trout in the bag because what I was looking at was the most featureless river I had ever seen. Loving the new boots I set stride for the dam.

I will generally start off with nymphing if I can, and today was no exception. I don’t mind fishing with buggers, but I do that all of the time for all sorts of fish. Nymphing is one of my favorite things to do, but I know I can always retreat to a bugger if needed. I realized as I stepped into the water that I soon would be switching to a bugger as there was really no flow whatsoever to the water I was standing in. Not only that but I couldn’t wade out more that 20 or so feet from the shore, and I could only do that in 2 places I had found. “Not the prettiest” is an apt way to describe this river, let alone in reference to a trout stream.

After about 20 casts of my nymph rig, and the indicator seeming to drift up stream due to the wind, I relent and put on a bugger. The river is dead and because of an early fall my gloves are toast and I wonder why didn’t I ask for some glacier gloves for Christmas. After an hour and half of pulling buggers in water that all looked the same, I decide it is time to warm up and see if the things are a little different down stream.

When I get there I see some locals under a bridge fishing a big pool, the whole thing is a damn pool actually, so I figure this might be a good spot. I would put up with the lack of solitude for a trout at this point. As I stand on the dam I cast everywhere above and below the dam and only get the a fore mentioned bluegill. As I am fishing a few more guys fishing power bait show up and actually catch a few fish each. So at least I know there are trout here, but why the hell can’t I catch one on a bugger? As it got colder, I got sick of the constant de-icing of my guides. I would have put up with it if I was catching fish, but it was getting tedious doing this every 5 casts. It was time to change gears. I am a lazy fly tyer and generally only have a handful of patterns I tend to fish and always have one or two new things. I have never fished a San Juan Worm or any egg patterns so I never have had to carry them. I really wish I had something, anything, that wasn’t your standard nymph pattern. I tie on my usual killer fly, an indicator, and some weight, already knowing I was completely defeated and I knowing I would have to return sometime soon to avenge myself with a better arsenal of flies.

Nature, and the stockers, kicked my ass this weekend, but I did get to play with all my new toys on the water. I love my new wading gear.. The new Pentax W30 preformed better than I expected given the low light conditions, but I didn’t get to try the underwater feature. Maybe after I get some new gloves.

New Stuff

2007-12-22T03:48:00Z

I got some really nice clothing, both fishing and none, new shades, and a new camera tonight. I really cleaned up, but I think my favorite gift has to be a picture from Fish Eye Guy Photography of a Brook trout. The better half really surprised me with that one. It is going to go great in the office above the fly tying desk that will one day sit there.

I am am heading to “Not the Prettiest Trout Stream” tomorrow and hope to have some pics of it. I am not sure what to expect, but it has been a few weeks since I have gotten on the water so I can’t wait. Oh yeah, I need to tie up some flies.