Some cool fly fishing lanyards made here in Texas!

My good friend Rick over at Water Walker Lanyards and Lures sent me a set of the lanyards he makes. He sent me three of his Southwestern model, one of his Dry Fly model, and one of his Gulf Coast model lanyards. Two of the Southwestern lanyards are for my son and I and the rest are for donation to the local fly fishing club courtesy of Rick. In short, these are the nicest looking fly fishing lanyards I have come across!

To begin with, I already had a lanyard made by Morning Star Lanyards. It has been a good lanyard that came with a retractor and fly patch but Rick's beats it in quality for a lower price! Same can be said for the similar fly fishing lanyards made by Orvis and MayFly™ which are more expensive.

What do I like about this new lanyard? Well, to begin with, I know that great care and skill went into it. I like the small touches such as the swivel in the shirt clip, the rubber shrink tubing that finishes off the cord ends, the beautiful beads, inline fly foam holders, and symmetrical location of the swivel connections. The inline fly foam holders are genius! I also like the light weight, that along with thick foam for the back of the neck, make for a very comfortable lanyard. The cord colors and patterns are pretty nice, too. Lastly, you have to love those beads!

I modded my lanyard as soon as I got it and added two retractors; one for my line clipper and one for my clamps. I also added a square foam fly patch for bigger flies that I would not want to stick in the built-in fly foam holders. I still have room for my tippet holder. Rick can add a fifth swivel connection in the center next to the shirt clip if you need one for a small fly box for example.

So, in closing, if you are looking for a quality made fly fishing lanyard for under $20 from a Texas craftsman, check out Rick's site. You'll be glad you did!

Exploring Brushy Creek

About a 15 minute drive from the house runs a creek through some scenic views that I have been meaning to explore. So, I took my 4wt and decided to fish it for a bit for about an hour or two before lunch.

We had some rain a few days ago that were remnants of Hurricane Dolly yet the creek was running clear. The area I tried had had trees surrounding each bank and above it. In some spots the creek was somewhat narrow but casting was not hindered too much.

Wading downstream I was surprised with the depth of the water. I had figured it was going to be really shallow but there were some areas where the water went above my knees. This is of course more than adequate for a largemouth bass to lie in ambush for a woolly bugger.

I caught a couple of really bright orange spotted fish which I think were Pumpkinseeds, and some green sunfish along with a Rio Grande Cichlid. I could see beds in lots of places plus bass patrolling around these beds.

Farther downstream I found a hole that contained a school of dozens of baby catfish. In this hole were a couple of good size bass over one pound that were mingling among the catfish school. I wasn't able to catch either after switching out flies several times.

It was getting to be noon and I was really hungry so I went back upstream and left. I expect to be back to this creek and next time explore the upstream section.

One reason I had come to this creek was because of what I had heard about carp being in there though I did not find any in the small section I explored.

Catfish hole redux

One of my nephews is visiting us for a couple of weeks this summer. One of the things my son wanted to do while he was here was to take my nephew and he to the place my son and I went a couple of weekends ago to the spot he caught a few catfish. So, I made preparations this week and rented a small sit-on-top kayak from a local kayak shop.

Yesterday, we went to the YMCA in town that has a small, shallow lake and I had my nephew practice his paddling skills since he was fairly new to it. After an hour, he got pretty good at moving forward, turning, stopping and paddling in reverse. I then got all the fishing gear together that night.

This morning we set off to the same put-in as before and headed upriver. My nephew found it a little more difficult paddling against a current (light as it was) but he did just fine.

Eventually, we got to our destination which was the pool where we had caught catfish two weeks ago and rigged up. My son was the first to catch a catfish though my nephew followed soon after with one on his first cast.

Both boys concentrated on their fishing and in the hour and 45 minutes, my nephew caught and released six fish with a couple around two pounds. My son caught and released five on his own.

We paddled back to the put-in so we could get home early to clean up to have lunch with the rest of the family. Both boys enjoyed fishing and paddling together and seeing cranes, herons, a raccoon and finding a sun bleached deer antler. I had fun taking them out as well.

Going back to basics - the woolly bugger

For a while now I have been experimenting with various new patterns for carp, bass, etc. but I came to a realization that I should return to a pattern, a simple as it is, that worked. Therefore, on my recent trip to a new fly shop I picked up materials for tying up the woolly bugger.

In the past I have caught the following species on this fly:

• Catfish
• Largemouth Bass
• Guadalupe Bass
• Red breast sunfish
• Bluegill
• Rio Grande Cichlid
• Common Carp
• Spotted gar
• Speckled Trout (yes, the saltwater kind)

There are probably a couple of other species that I have caught on the bugger (I don't remember if I caught a rainbow trout on one).

Olive green is my most successful color followed by black so I tied a dozen of these. On recommendation from the fly shop owner, I bought some variegated/grizzly olive (with black bars) Wapsi hackle and maribou. He also recommended black coneheads instead of the gold beads I usually use (even though the package says black, the conheads look like a lead gray to me). I did tie a few with gold coneheads though. I expect these flies will catch fish just fine.

Living Waters Fly Fishing Shop

This morning I drove about 15 minutes from my house to a new fly shop in neighboring Round Rock to check out a new fly shop that opened up about three weeks ago. It is called Living Waters Fly Fishing and is located in a shopping center just past the intersection of Sam Bass Rd. and Hairy Man Rd. very close to Brushy Creek. I was eager to check it out since the next nearest fly shop is about an hour away and the next one (in Cabelas) even further than that.

It was fairly easy to find. There was a small sign outside that said the shop was now open. When I walked in, someone was just leaving and I was greeted by the owner, a young man by the name of Chris Johnson, and we began to talk.

I knew Chris had worked at a chain sports store that had a "fly shop" in it. While that store originally had an OK supply of fly stuff, they never seemed to restock it well enough or stock it with items pertinent to our Texas location which should have included more items for the target species such as bass and redfish rather than the more traditional cold water trout. I was glad looking around that I did see photos of different species of fish other than just trout.

I asked Chris about the best spots to wade in the nearby creek for bass and carp and he was quite helpful. Before he opened the shop, he used to guide on the nearby creek as well as other rivers in the area. I was mainly interested in carp from the last encounter I had a few weeks back with a fly fisher I met on the San Gabriel. It turns out that Chris new the gentleman that I was speaking of and that man had come by the shop just the day before! Small world!

I picked up some materials for tying some olive and some black woolly buggers since it been a long time since I had any of these successful flies in my fly box and I need to get back to some basics. Chris suggested some slight variations from what I normally tie and after getting home and tying a dozen flies, I think I like the results.

We continued with our conversation and another gentlemen entered the store and we had a conversation with him about carp, gar, Rio Grandes, and other topics as well. My wife was waiting for me at home for us to go to an outlet store so I couldn't stay too long.

I got a good impression of the shop, small as it currently is, that it will likely be around for a while. While he does't carry a lot of items at the moment, Chris said he can place special orders for the brands he carries if what I am looking for isn't there. He also plans to at some point carry Winston and Sage rods to supplement the TFO and Ross rods he is carrying now. I really don't need any rods myself but that should round out the selection.

Chris also plans to have fly tying stations in the back of the store for customers and for hopefully monthly tying seminars.

All I can say is that I hope that this store is around for a long time. We've needed another fly shop for a long while in this part of Austin and there are plenty of fly fishers around that should be supporting the store. I'll be one them for sure.