Father’s Day Treat

Saturday morning, I decided to treat myself to my own Father’s Day gift. A busy week of band camp had left me itching to get on the water. I decided to let my body clock wake me up in the morning and I would fish my neighborhood lake. My body clock usually wakes me up around 5:15 and this morning was no different. I grabbed a quick cup of coffee two fly rods and I was out the door carting my kayak down the road two blocks to my put in point.

It’s a rare treat when anyone of us mortals gets to truly experience what I call “God’s Splendor.” Those of us who are sportsmen and enjoy the outdoors get to see His splendor in the beauty of a sunrise, the sounds of a soft breeze through pine trees, the song of feeding gulls, or the “sploosh” of fish as it rises and attacks a popper. I get to see what God can do with a paintbrush and I can’t pass up an opportunity to get out and see what new masterpiece awaits me on God’s canvass of life.

This morning’s short walk to my put in point began as interestingly as it ended. In the low light of the dawn I saw an owl wing overhead with its breakfast grasped firmly in its sharp talons. A small squirrel had succumbed to one of the great hunters of our suburban community. I thought about getting a picture but it was too dark and I knew that it would be a waste of my time. I continued down the path to the lake and was greeted to a film of duckweed and brown foam on the water where I put in. I actually delight in those conditions because I know that shad feed on the foam and bass…well, if you’re reading this blog. You know that bass love shad.

By 6 AM, I had landed three bass and had missed a couple more.

 

The morning was shaping up to be a nice one at that. My recent trips to that lake this summer have been somewhat disappointing. The bass fishing has been slow and those that I have caught have been on the small side. The bull bream has been good and I usually can catch a nice mess of fillet-sized bream for the fryer. After about 6:15, the bass action had stopped and the only action I was getting was from bream trying to eat my bass popper. I decided I was going to have fun so I downsized my popper and played catch-and-release with a dozen or so nice bream.

 

Wouldn’t you know that while fishing for bream with some of the smallest poppers I tied, I hooked the largest bass I’ve caught of the season?

 

 

Check out just how tiny that popper is.

Remember I said that this morning’s trip began and as interestingly as it ended? Well, I was putting the finishing touches on a splendid morning of fishing, when I enticed another medium-sized bream to eat my popper. As I was bringing the fish in, a HUGE bass tried to eat the bream. I’m looking at my personal best right now, an eight-pound bass caught several years ago, which is mounted on my wall in my office. Today’s fish was almost as big as the one I have on my wall! Well, I remembered a bream being attacked by a bass once before in this lake so I let the bream run a little bit more. A couple of seconds later, my rod bent nearly in half as the bass had eaten my bream. I’m sure I didn’t have that bass on for more than 10 seconds but it seemed like triple that. The bass took off to the bottom first and then came up to see what was playing tug-o-war with its breakfast. When the bass saw my kayak and me, it opened its mouth, shook violently, and the bream came flying out. The bream then worked its way off the hook so both fish were released unharmed. Needless to say, I laughed out loud like a child! I love fly-fishing! In no other fishing do I find myself laughing out loud like I was a kid again. Thank you God for this morning’s special Father’s Day Gift! Now I don’t know whether to keep fishing tiny flies or start tying gigantic flies!

May Fly-rod Challenge

I nearly freaked when I looked at my blog a week ago and realized I hadn’t posted anything this month. May is always a busy month to begin with. I’m finishing up spring concerts, getting exams ready to administer, making summer plans for my students and myself, and preparing groups to perform at graduation. To top that off, it’s been a windy, rainy month to boot. I did get to get out and make a few fresh water trips in my neighborhood lake and I made a Memorial Day weekend trip to False River.  I’m looking forward to getting down to the coast in June and July and I may even take a trip up north to do some cold water trout fishing!

So May’s species are the usual fresh water types. The first is a chinquapin.

 

Next is a pretty little bass caught on a popper:

 

And the third is a mixture of bluegill and chinquapin.

My April Fly-rod Challenge Update

This month’s challenge of trying to catch a large variety of different species on the fly-rod was more challenging than that of the first three months of the year. I can see where this is going to get really tough when my busiest time of the year with work (August and September) gets here. I was able to finish April strong with my only salt water trip. My gold spoon fly was my most productive fly on this trip as I caught my personal best sheepshead, a redfish, and several black drum, which was the first time I caught that species ever on a fly.

Add to that several largemouth black bass, and two different species of bream and my total for the month of April ended up being six different species for the month.

Breaking in the new kayak

For quite some time now, I’ve been looking to upgrade my Wilderness Tarpon. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a Jackson Cruise. I’ve been looking for a light SOT kayak that I could stand in to sight fish and the Cruise is just the ticket! I actually broke it in last week in my neighborhood lake and caught a couple of bass in the process. The seat, which is more like a folding chair is very comfortable and the front is uncluttered with hatches and latches so there is less for my fly line to get tangled around.

I got in touch with a friend of mine, Ben Roussel, who happens to be a Jackson rep and he talked me into fishing with him and a buddy of his, Blake LeBlanc, down in Empire Louisiana for the Bayou Coast Kayak Fishing Club’s “Redfish Rumble” tournament.  We got an early start (3:30 AM) from Baton Rouge and made the long drive down Highway 23, which follows the Mississippi River down all the way to Venice. We were greeted with higher-than-normal water and a stiff wind that blew from 10-15 all day. Actually, early on it wasn’t that windy but the winds did pick up around 7 or 8 in the morning.

It took me a while to get used to standing and fishing out of my kayak. Early in the process, I recognized the potential this boat has for some real epic fishing. It’s just that the conditions Saturday did not favor the fly fisherman. Cormier’s rules state that “clear water favors the fly fisherman.” Oh well, I had a lot to learn about my new boat anyway.

First, I had to get used to standing and paddling, which isn’t a problem since I’ve had much experience push-poling pirogues through the marsh in my duck hunting days. The real problem I was having was to keep my stealth mode up when I would see a fish. First, with the strong winds and the dirty water, I wouldn’t really see a fish until I was right on one. Then, I had very little time to clip my paddle on to my belt and reach down for my rod and make a cast. I spooked a very nice redfish early on because of this. I have to figure out a way to get to my fly rod quicker. I’m going to experiment with a rod holder in the RAM ball toward the front of the boat.  I’ll report how that fares in future fishing trip

My first fish of the morning ended up being my personal best sheepshead on the fly. I saw it making a ruckus in the marsh and I push-poled my way into striking distance. It took three casts to get the fish to eat but when it did, it put up an angry fight until I got it netted.

My second fish was a 16-inch redfish that I caught blind casting to a point in the marsh. My third fish was text book sight-fishing from a kayak. I actually heard the splash that sounded like a feeding fish. When I saw it, I had to make a cast on the other side of a small island that I was behind. I got the fish to eat and landed my first black drum of the day…which is my first drum on the fly rod! I actually had to drag the fish over the little marsh island to land it.

 

Toward the end of the day, I explored an area of marsh that looked like a flooded field. I sight casted to several more drum and landed three more. As we were just getting ready to head in, my buddy Ben caught a 25 inch redfish on one of my spoon flies that I gave him. 

 

You can see what I meant about that area looking like a “flooded field” from that picture. 

I have a few setup kinks to iron out with my boat, like what to do with extra rods so that I don’t step on them or sit on them…oh yeah…that reminds me. I did take a swim Saturday! I was having trouble poling around in the marsh grass with my rod sticking a couple of feet out in front of the yak. You can see in Ben’s picture that the rod sticks out a couple of feet. Well, my line kept getting caught up in some of the blades of grass and it would pull my line off the rod and eventually (if I wasn’t paying attention) would pull my fly out of the boat and it would get hung up on something. So, to rectify that problem, I put my rod on my seat while I was standing up. When I went to sit down one time, I sat on the rod and instinctively jumped up so I wouldn’t break my expensive rod. When I did that I got my head off center of the boat and…spash! I went in. I did manage not to break or loose anything and my cell phone survived the ordeal.

Well, today I took one of my PVC rod holders off one of my crates and attached it to my ice chest to give me more rod storage options on the water. I plan on moving my RAM rod holder to the front RAM ball so I can grab my rod at a moments notice without taking my off or spooking (hopefully) a fish. I can’t wait for another chance to do some more sight fishing in the marsh!

 

Product Review, UV-Cure Resin

I have been interested in purchasing a UV-epoxy product but I haven’t dove in simply because of the price. I’ve watched countless videos on Youtube that make it look all too easy but I just couldn’t justify the $40-plus price tag for a UV light and resin. 

I recently found a product by Solarez that I purchased for around $20 before shipping. I bought the UV light and a 3-pack of resin (thin, thick, and flex). Here’s the link where I purchased it from Hook & Hackle: https://store.hookhack.com/searchprods.asp

My first experience with the material was to make a spoon-fly. I used the thick material. My initial impression was pleasing. There was no mixing, mess, etc. The epoxy dried to a very hard, shiny finish. The instructions say to hit it with the UV light to get it hard but to let it sit in direct sunlight for about 3-5 minutes to cure it. I will try the thin material the next time I do a spoon fly, or at least use a brush to smooth it on. My finish, which won’t bother a redfish at all, was a bit clumpy, but that was user error and not the product.

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My second project was to put a finish on one of my bass poppers. Again the material (I used thin for this and a brush) went on easily and cured well once the sun came out

My third project was to make some baitfish out of EP fibers and other materials. My first was a bluegill pattern. My second was to imitate a menhaden. I was very pleased with both of these applications. I also used a drop to sure up the threads on a few Charlies and Clouser minnows that I tied.  

 

I have to give this product a thumbs up! If you’re just getting into fly tying, this would eliminate having to buy a rotary drying machine. I look forward to tying a few more spoon-flies and poppers in the near future.

My Flyrod Challenge for March

They say that March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion. Well, that’s kind of what happened to me in the month of March while on my quest to catch as many different species as I could on the fly.  First species on the fly was a chunky bass that I caught on a popper at the beginning of the month with my buddy, Austin Nola.

Then, things got busy at work for me and got even slower for fishing. I was able to pick up a chinquapin on the fly rod.

I continued my quest to catch one of the premier species during the month of March, the sac a lait (crappie). I searched and searched and finally caught a small stringer of 5 or six but I had to resort to shiners in the very dirty water. I finally hit paydirt the last week of the month on one after-work trip and caught a nice stringer of very big sacalait on the chartreuse and black fluff butt!

My only saltwater trip of the month took me to Leeville for our annual Paddle Palooza trournament. What I didn’t catch in numbers made up in quality as I caught a 19 inch speckled trout on a popper

and a 21-inch redfish on a gold spoon-fly.

To close out my species challenge for the month of march was a pair of sheepshead that were fooled by my spoon-fly.

My Paddle Palooza Report (I caught a slam…of sorts)

I fished my first official Bayou Coast Kayak Fishing Club tournament since January of 2012 (Minimalist Challenge). This tournament, dubbed Paddle Palooza, allows kayak fishermen to use any tackle (artificial, live bait, etc.) to compete for cash and prizes, including several brand new kayaks. The goal is to catch a slam consisting of your largest speckled trout, redfish, and flounder. I chose to bring only my fly rod and resolved to try to catch a slam but I to have fun with it since I figured I would not have a chance to be in the money. With ominous weather forecasts predicted for the day, I wondered if I was making the right choice. At one point during the week, the winds were predicted to blow 20 miles-per-hour. I was encouraged by watching the large American flags that I use as reference points along my drive down there which weren’t moving very much. In addition to that, a heavy fog had developed which was making visibility difficult.
When I arrived at my launch spot around 6:30 in the morning, there were three other vehicles with kayaks in front of me. One of them was a buddy of mine who wasn’t going to be able to fish because of family obligations and two members of the LSU kayak fishing team. I was the last guy to get in the water and after a short paddle out into the marsh, I watched Team LSU catch a couple of specs and one nice redfish. I knew that if I was going to catch any fish, I had better get to my usual spots before the predicted winds would pick up.
Experience has taught me to formulate a plan before getting on the water. It’s always more difficult, especially under low-light conditions, to tie knots and make big changes in my plans early on with a 9-foot rod inside a kayak. My plan was to take advantage of the near-flat seas to tie on a popper and target my trout. A gold spoon fly was tied on to my second rod to target redfish. I fished the edges of points and quickly got some aggressive trout to bust my popper. The only problem was I could not get them to hook up. I would sometimes get several strikes on every cast. The trout were knocking my popper all around! Now, most of these trout appeared to be small, in the 10 to 12-inch range. However, I was getting very perplexed as I watched large trout roll and smack my little two-inch popper and not find the hook. I checked my hook to make sure it was sharp and it was…so I figured the hook was set too far in the rear of the popper. These fish were smacking the head of the popper and were completely missing the hook. Close inspection of the popper showed teeth scratches all over the little minnow. I decided to replace the popper with a smaller one and started to catch some fish. I had caught and released a couple of trout that measured around the 12 inch mark when I hooked into a speckled trout which would become my personal best on the fly at 19 inches. I fished that point a little more and managed to lose a nice-sized spec and land a few more in the 12 to 13 inch range that I released.

By now, the winds were starting to pick up so I decided to try to target redfish before the wind got too bad. Because of the high water and overcast sky, sight–fishing was going to be totally out of the question. I targeted breaks in the marsh, drop-offs, and shallow oyster beds. The problem with that was there was an unusually large amount of algae (scum) in the marsh and the oyster beds were covered, making it difficult to spot. I managed to fish a couple of spots I knew held oysters and I picked up a 19-inch redfish and one a just a bit over 21 inches on a gold spoon-fly.

I then considered making my way back to the car to think about trying to catch a slam when I hooked what I thought was a redfish. It was a flat fish but instead of spots (like a flounder) it had stripes.

The hookup of the day came a little later. I had just eased my way into a little indention in the marsh that was on the lee side of the wind. I had seen some nervous water near a cut coming into the spot and I planned on letting the wind carry me into the area. I saw a big redfish cruise within 10 feet of my kayak and it hadn’t seen me. I quickly tossed my spoon-fly out in front of it and gave it a quick strip to get the fish’s attention. My fly landed a little west of this north-bound, bronze-colored train and I watched it change direction and make a bee-line toward this shiny intruder in its territory. Bam! He slammed it! The fish quickly stripped line off my reel and I fought to keep my kayak from slamming into the marsh as the wind was blowing me away from where the fish was swimming. After the initial run or two, I was able to gain line from the fish, but alas, it made another run and managed to make a clean cut of my tippet on some sort of underground structure, probably oysters.
The paddle back to the car was brutal. I had ventured a couple miles north of my put-in point and had to paddle back into a very stiff wind. I took a few breaks in my paddle to try a few spots but only managed my second sheepshead of the day.
At the weigh-in, I managed to catch up with several fishing buddies I hadn’t seen in a while. I also helped clean fish nonstop, for 2-and-a-half hours. In the process I saw some of the largest speckled trout I’ve seen in many, many years! There were several over 22 inches and I believe a couple hit the 25 or 26 inch mark.
It is said that there are no losers in Paddle Palooza. Well, I had a great time and caught fish in windy conditions. Additionally, I was able to catch two fish that I will be able to enter in Massey’s CPR (Catch, Photo, Release) tournament. It is open to BCKFC members and there is a fly fishing division. I think my 19-inch trout will hold up for a while. If not, then I’ll just have to catch a larger one before the tournament ends in October.

Found the Sacalait!

I’ve been on a quest to catch some sacalait (crappie) on my fly rod this month to keep up with my different species goal. I have not been successful and time is running out, with a salt water event this weekend and a trip to Houston planned next weekend. So, I made it out to a neighborhood pond and caught these. I kept 9 and released 3. I also picked up a few bream and caught one 15 inch bass (released). All sacalait were caught on a black and chartreuse fluff butt.

My camera setup

I’ve been asked by a few other kayakers about my camera setup.

I use two mounts. My old one (second pic) is for my kodak playsport. My new one is for my GoPro Hero 2

So here’s where I got the idea for the old one:

http://www.sportfishingmag.com/gallery/2012/03/build-your-own-gopro-mounting-system

The new one is designed from this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7OVHtWeaQA

Both setups have their own advantages. The old setup swings easily and I find it’s easy to get pictures of me holding fish. I can set the camera to go off and swing the PVC around with my foot to get ready for the picture. However, I always worry about the dang thing falling in the water. The newest mount (Targus) is somewhat difficult to pull out of the Scotty mount and adjust. I have to be careful not to over extend myself and fall out my yak. However, once I have it setup and locked, it’s not going anywhere and won’t fall out the boat. I still use pool noodle to make double sure I don’t lose it. GoPros are expensive.

My kodak mount

My GoPro Hero 2 mount

February Fly

In keeping with one of my goals, which is to catch a different species on the fly each month, I am submitting my February fish. The first is one of several big redfish I caught on a spoonfly.

 

Next is a sheepshead that was fooled by the gold spoon fly.

I did manage to catch a keeper speckled trout on a Charlie under a VOSI.

My only freshwater entry for the month was this bass, which I caught on a trip with Austin Nola his last weekend in Baton Rouge before going to Florida for spring training with the Marlins.