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.

Tackle art

I was taking photos of my collection of rods and reels for insurance purposes and decided to create a new wallpaper for my computer from one of the photos. I basically haven't found any fly fishing tackle related wallpaper on the 'net that I've really liked so that's why I did my own.

I took a photo of an arrangment of rods and reels and then ran it through a great piece of open source software called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) which is very similar to a commercial photo imaging software. I ran the image through an "Oilify" and "Canvas" filter to produce a look of a oil on canvas painting. I hope folks like it...

Edit: I redid the original 1600x1200 and cropped it to a 1280x1024 with a slightly higher oily and canvassy appearance to make it look less like a photo and more like a painting. Here is the new one:
Here is what a cubist painting of the above would possibly look like (used cubism filter along with canvas filter):

More carp fishing on the SG

Sunday morning I went to the same stretch of the river as the previous weekend targeting carp. There was a glowing report from a friend of mine regarding the same stretch of river that made me decide to go again. In his report for Saturday, he mentioned catching his first mirror carp which I didn't know were in the river amongst the common carp. Here is the mirror carp he caught.

So, with those images, I made plans to bring my Sage XP 691-4 6wt with the fighting butt and some new patterns to try.

To make a long story short, I did pretty good that morning with seven carp coming from the same pool above the rapids that I caught carp from the previous weekend. I also caught one more on the shallow "flats" just upriver from there.

All the fish fell for a fly created by a master tier in Tyler, Texas Jim Green called his "Texas Charlie" which is a variation of a Gotcha or Crazy Charlie tied with a chenille body. The carp seemed to prefer the reddish brown and orange variations probably because they likely resembled fleeing crawfish.

Here is a photo of one of Jim Green's creations (originally intended for redfish though) that was not destroyed by the carp.

Cool River Fishing

Due to the plenty of recent rains, I decided to try fishing the San Gabriel river east of Georgetown at the intersection of Highway 29 and CR100, a.k.a. Mankin's Crossing. The only thing was that a cold front came through and so the north wind was blowing 15-20mph and the morning temps started in the upper 40s so I set my expectations kind of low. Fishing a cold morning right after a front usually have not been too productive in the past. This was the first since the start of the year that I donned breathable waders and it was good thing I did.

I got to the low water crossing to launch my kayak at around 9am. The water was suprisingly slightly above average and clear with no signs of floating algae/scum anywhere. The water was moving well also.

I paddled upstream to before the first rapids and saw carp "puffs" (sediment stirred up by carp I was spooking) but other than that no brim or bass and I did see small baitfish and the occassional schools of juvenile carp.

Just as I was about 80 feet from the rapids something jumped onto the boulders and a log strewn across the rapids. It was an adult bobcat about the size of a medium-sized dog! First time I've ever seen a wild one. That was cool! He jumped to the other side of the bank and disappeared in the trees before I could snap a photo of it.

Looking around the section below the rapids looked somewhat different. There was evidence of flood waters that had receded and reshaped this section a little to where a new pool below the rapids existed and the sand bar moved downriver about 50 feet from where it used to be.

On the other side of the rapids the pool there also looked a little different and I could see plenty of carp roaming. Here the occassional wind could be felt in the more open area. I decided to stalk my first carp.

I ended upwith my first carp along a hump near the center of the pool. It gave some great runs and I was wishing that my 5wt had a fighting butt and a foregrip so I just loosened the drag a bit so I didn't put too much pressure on it. The fight lasted a good 10 to 15 minutes and I removed the fly from the carp's mouth without ever taking the fish from the water. The fish likely weighed about 5 pounds.



About 20 minutes later I hooked up with the second carp which was a bit smaller, likely around 3 1/2 or 4lbs, and also removed the hook without taking it out of the water. I then waded closer below a riffle that came to the pool that held several carp. I waded slowly and stood still and occassionally had carp school less than 3 feet from me before getting spooked. I wasn't able to hook any more from the pool so I headed upstream.

Upstream from the pool had the river turn and face right into the north wind so it felt colder and I was getting chapped from the wind constantly in my face. I found plenty of carp suspending in the current along the shoreline like rainbow trout waiting to pickoff morsels brought to them downstream by the current. I kept trying different flies and drifting it to them but they would just reposition and ignore me. After about 30 futile minutes and getting a headache from the cold wind, I headed back to the first pool.

I spooked several carp back at the pool but saw two that had not seen me that were right along the bank below a tree. I overshot my cast and the fly landed on the grass on the shore and was snagged a bit. When I pulled the fly and it plopped into the water, it got the attention of one of the carp and it inhaled the fly and carp #3 gave some good runs for about 10 minutes.

There were so many carp in the pool active, it really surprised me but I didn't get any further hookups except for a foul hooking of one on the back which I won't count.

I proceeded back below the rapids and found some carp below it so I cast into them. I think I almost foul hooked one because they all exploded and the fly flew back at me on the hookset.

On my way almost out, I saw a large carp below a tree to which I cast to and the fly sunk out of sight and so did the carp. I thought I spooked it but seconds later I felt the pressure of it and strip-striked and it exploded out of the water and broke my tippet right at the knot. Man! That carp was likely around 10lbs and would have been a real test on the 5wt.

BTW, the fly that caught all of the carp was a #10 Flashback Tri-Tail nymph in black with a gold beadhead that I got from an Orvis trout fly sampler. Since it was my only one, I need to learn how to tie one since it turned out to be a pretty productive carp fly.

I ended up leaving at 12:30pm feeling pretty good but I may likely bring the 6wt with the fighting butt next time if all I target is carp.