Texoma rocks

I'll get a more formal post up tomorrow, but here's a sneak peek of my weekend on the big Tex

Grandpa with a nice little striper

Bass were biting too, too bad I forgot to bring the fly gear with me!

Smallies, Suckers, and Stripers (Oh my)

I fished Texoma on Wednesday after some Stripers(Well, Tuesday and Wednesday, but Tuesday didn't go too well) and did pretty well. We got up and loaded the boat at a little after 4 and were on the ramp by 5. Glad we went, it was worth the trip.

Somehow I picked up my new PB River Carpsucker on a rattle trap fishing for stripers. It fought really damn hard though.

Plus I got a striper. Check.

And I got a nice Largemouth

Then I got into the SMALLIES! Smallmouth are kind of a rarity this far down the lake so it was pretty cool to see a few of these around here.

Another smallie! I love smallmouths.

Close up Bronzeback.

Only bad thing of the trip is I smashed my finger trying to re-adjust the trolling motor. Ouch!

Leaving for Florida Saturday!

First Fishing Folly

I can sum the whole new years day trip with Shannon Drawe on the Red River at the Denison Dam with 3 words= COLD AS HELL! It was absolutely freezing! I got up at 7 and looked out the window to a snowy looking heavy frost. I looked at the weather and an "Oh Shit" echoed from my room as I saw the number displayed on the screen- 22 degrees. That's insane for Texas. A text from Shannon assures me the trip is still on, so I went downstairs, loaded up my stuff and jumped in the truck. We were on the road.

Fast forward 1 hour. We have the kayaks in the water. Shannon looks at me and says "Amigo, we are complete idiots for attempting this, but lets get going!" I stick the kayak in and walk into the water, boosting myself into the Diablo and watching my wet waders turn white freezing before my eyes.

Arriving at the dam

Rigged and ready!

We paddled down about a mile and started casting around the deep holes I marked. You can feel the line becoming stiff and the guides freeze before my eyes. The line i'm stripping in is freezing my index finger to the line. I had a striper follow the fly right to the kayak without striking. It's freezing, and being this far downstream we aren't protected from the wind by the dam.

Me flailing the rod into the stiff wind.

We decide to paddle back to the dam and suddenly shannon sees a bunch of bait rolling around on the surface. we cast around but the fish seem really lethargic. We decide to go target buffalo near the dam. We see at least 50 buffs but they are super lethargic, very hard to catch becomes nearly impossible. The fish just weren't there. I hope they start generating, there needs to be some water down there, but we had a good time skipping between the Texas and Oklahoma sides. I have decided that I need a new carp fly soon since I spooked so many today from my fly splashing in. We had a good time, but it was really cold. I think the high was like 33 that day then it dropped back to 16 again. Still, this kicks off the 2011 Year on the Fly. Happy New Year!