The Jerk

Not much to report this weekend since I was sick since Thursday. I ended up thinking I should tie a new pattern that I could use on largemouth bass. I am really anxious to catch a good size largemouth as it's been a while.

Anyways, I picked a pattern called "The Jerk" by Nick Reding from Florida which I saw in an issue of Saltwater Fly Fishing magazine. It's really a pattern that's intended for redfish but it really reminded me of the Bonker Zonker which I have used before with good success on largemouth bass. The rabbit strip is what gives these flies such great action in the water that is the number one ingredient to their success.

The pattern was inspired by the jerk worm hence the name. It is really a simple fly to tie. Here's the recipe:

Hook: Tiemco 811s size 2
Thread: Chartreuse
Tail: Polar Fiber or Foxxy (craft) fur and Krystal Flash
Body: Crystal Chenille or Krystal Flash rope
Wing: Rabbit strip threaded on hook
Head: 1/16 ounce painted lead eyes or 5/32" nickel I-Balz
Weed guard: optional

Like I said, the fly was easy enough to tie and I chose white rather than brown, olive green or black though I expect those colors would work well also. I chose chrome/silver for the body and pearl flash for the tail to be closer to shad colors.

I am one more week away from vacation for the rest of the year so hopefully I will get a chance to try it out.

Stocked trout

I went to Blue Hole park on the south fork of the San Gabriel river in Georgetown to experience a stocking of rainbow trout by TPWD. I was only there a short time after the trout were released. They were mostly in the 8 to 10 inch range.

The experience was anti-climactic at best. I had hoped for more but it seems strange trying to catch these small fish that have been hatchery raised and not wild. Of course they couldn't be wild; this is Texas and with the exception of some parts of the Guadalupe river, coldwater trout can't survive long in the warm waters of our state. The fact that the fish simply schooled around the area surrounded by anglers casting Mepps spinners at them was akin to the expression "like shooting fish in a barrel". It almost didn't seem sporting though some folks weren't catching any and some were catching enough (once you get your limit of 5 you are done). I think it would be great for kids but releasing fish on school day doesn't allow for many kids to participate.

Anyways, I don't mean to sound harsh because it serves a purpose though I doubt I'll ever do it again. I did catch and release my one rainbow trout but didn't bother taking a photo of it. I left shortly afterwards.

A new camera to capture fishing adventures

Seeing as my camera phone sucks and it would be difficult to explain to the wife that I ruined the family camera by dropping it in the water, I decided to look for a camera of my own.

I like Canon digital cameras and the ELPH series are small enough to carry easily in a shirt pocket so I looked at getting an older model off ebay. I figured I could get a quality used camera at a reasonable price. I settled on the 3 megapixel PowerShot S230 ELPH camera. A water-resitant or waterproof model would have been better but those seemed obviously a bit more expensive.

Anyways, the camera I decided to bid on was luckily being sold by someone in the next town so I contacted the seller who indicated I could pick it up rather than pay the $15 shipping cost since I was local. That gave me a $15 advantage over other bidders so I set my max bid at $80 and I won it later that day. I picked the camera up from the seller today.

Not a bad deal for a camera that 3 years ago sold for around $399. It came with two batteries, the charger, USB cables, manuals, and a 128MB CF card as well as a 32MB and a couple of 16MB CF cards that aren't all too useful.

I checked the camera and batteries out by snapping about 80 random photos around the house with the flash and it appeared to work fine. The 640x480 movie mode I took of the dog was pretty decent. This will be a bonus addition to catch those live action shots of fish burning drag, etc.

I'm pleased that my blog will now have better quality photos and possibly video and if I were to do something horrible to the camera, I'm not out $400. Cool.

Some post-Thanksgiving river fishing

After a month away from fishing freshwater, I contacted my friend preast to see if he wanted to join me on the San Gabriel river on Saturday morning to pursue some carp on the fly. He said he may be a little late.

The morning turned out to be beautiful. It was still and crisp but it was really foggy. It was so foggy I could barely make out the outline of the 18-wheeler that was parked across the two lanes of the road! I got around it safely though.

I got to the low water crossing around 8am and paddled upstream. It was a gorgeous morning on the water with the cool air, fog, calm water and the changing fall colors in the trees lining the river.

Fishing was slow, by the time preast showed around mid-morning, I had only caught two carp in the shallow limestone flats. So preast and I returned to a pool downstream where I have usually had better luck. preast indicated he never has much luck there. As it turned out, that would change.

I ended up catching one more carp at the pool and preast immediately hooked up with one that was mudding near him. He kept fishing and caught a couple more nice ones including the one he's holding in the photo here (sorry, but all I had was my camera phone which explains the low quality). I really need to ask for a better digital camera for Christmas that I can use for fishing trips.

So, we kept fishing and continued downstream with no additional luck and called it a day. We discussed getting together again in December to fish the Guadalupe river for rainbow trout which is a fish I have very little experience going after but enjoyed catching last year.

Moonlight on the bays

I went down to Corpus Christi this weekend to fish my cousin George once again. Originally the plans were to do an offshore trip but that didn't pan out as there was no scheduled trip out on Friday.

The first thoughts were to fish some bridge lights from the kayak but we ended up fishing with the sail line at Bird Island Basin since the winds were a fairly steady 20 knots from the East to Northeast. We only ended up with a few undersized trout and one keeper trout. We also ended up with two black drum and so we gave up around 2am.

On Saturday afternoon with took the kayaks out to Deadman's Hole. No sooner than we paddled out to the north in search of redfish and got to the deeper water did we stumble onto a large school of keeper to oversize redfish containing dozens and dozens of fish. The water was bronze with redfish. The only problem is they didn't care for any lure or fly we threw at them which was frustrating. According to my cousin, they were hunting by smell not sight. They saw my spoonfly alright since I saw them swim right underneath it. We did catch a few small trout but no reds that afternoon. We decided to come back with the sail line and some live shrimp for a night wade and see if our luck would change.

That night we came back to Deadman's with waders on since the water was a bit cool. The tide was rising fast and we could actually see the water slowly creeping up on shore. We set the sail line out and then after a while took the baitbucket with shrimp out for some wadefishing by moonlight.

The first thing I caught was a small stingray. George caught a small hardhead and I think I had one to but it came off. These are the downsides of live bait; they attract trash fish. George did manage a rat red but the big schools of keeper redfish we had run into that afternoon. Around 11pm we called it a night. The laguna was beautiful in the moonlight. Even without the fish, it had been a good night to be out and about.

This was an interesting trip since I actually got to use four forms of fishing: 1) fly casting 2) baitcasting with shrimp 3) sail lining and 4) baitcasting with artificial lures and none was particularly productive. Oh well, we'll nail them next time.