Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The hard part

Shannon challenged me last year to take on the "Catch a carp on the fly every month of the year" challenge. Of course this would be the hard part, catching a carp on the fly in December and January. I need to FIND some first then go about catching them on a fly rod. most of them are deep right now but sooner or later I hope things will come together for me. I've made it through May, June, July, August, September, October, and November so far, hopefully I can seal the gap in the next 5 months and finally get the challenge over with.

Another thing is I finally got a decent camera for video, a GoPro! I've been playing with it a little bit, it's really cool. I need to play with the settings and figure them out before I can really start using it but it's gonna be fun having I know.
Hopefully i'll have some actual fish in the next post (lol)

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey day everyone! Hope you guys had a great day.

As always, I got to go to Rough Creek again. While we didn't get to stay any more than a day this time but it was still great. Good food and even better fishing. The crappie were pretty active toward the end of the day.
 I found them about 6 foot deep on some stumps right next to the dock.

 Nice one
 Caught these along with a few nice bluegill and redear sunfish. Hopefully this year I'll be able to go during the bass spawn and have a chance at getting another double digit bass from here!

Monday, November 7, 2011

November Carp on the fly

This would be the latest in the year I've ever caught carp on the fly.

I fished LLELA again Saturday and Sunday. When I got there Saturday I learned that they were generating, there was 335cfs coming down according to the website. AWESOME! It really turns on down there when there's water coming downstream.

Picked up the first common pretty quickly, then caught a second one from the slough behind me.


I made my way down to the creek past the railroad bridge and saw a ridiculous number of fish; Carp, Buffalo, Gar, everything. Couldn't get any commitments though, I did have a few very close chases from carp.

Sunday was completely different. This time Jonathan came with me. Not only did we not catch anything sizeable, but no carp or buffs were landed. I caught a 2 inch long bass on the first cast, I seriously thought the fly had a leaf caught on it. Well, I'll be back soon, they'll start stocking trout down there in a few short weeks!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Trinity on the fly

I decided to fish LLELA(the Lake Lewisville dam) today after, well, anything. I had no idea what the fishing would be like down there since I haven't been down there since March. They were releasing a little water, around 200cfs, so there was a good bit of flow for me to deal with. I started walking downstream, plopping a fly into a pool every now and then. I really wasn't seeing much so I made a big move- all the way to the railroad bridge. I walked the mile long trail down to it and fished around it for a while. Caught a few bluegill right before I went under it then came to the other side. Then I saw something that interested me, a creek that dumped in another 70 or so feet downstream from me. I walked to it and saw some bluegill and bass holding on a big log in the water. The bank was pretty high up off the water so I couldn't hit it from that spot, so I started searching for a way to get down there.

I found a worn down trail, I don't even think it was a human made trail. Once it led me to the water I saw another ledge but this time some roots provided me a climb down spot. Then I looked beneath the surface and couldn't believe my eyes. Carp, Buffalo, River Carpsuckers, Blue suckers, Redhorses, and assorted other species scattered all around. I just sat there and stood amazed for a few minutes, watching from a clear vantage point at the vast number of fish below me. I then saw a target, a carp that was cruising really slowly, dropping down toward the bottom every now and then to pick up a possible food item. I made my first cast from 15 feet up the bank on that ledge. I dropped the fly in about 2 feet ahead of the fish. I really didn't expect much, maybe a look but no take, but the opposite happened. The fish saw the fly, picked up speed, and inhaled it. I set the hook, Fish ON!

The fish made a few nice runs and finally came to the net. The weird thing was none of the other fish spooked, I even had 2 more carp try to take the fly away from the fish! Turned out to be a nice little fish, an immaculate mid single that was very healthy.


I went right back to fishing. I had a few spook but ended up getting several more interested looks. Nothing for about 40 minutes, at least no takes that is. I didn't have much time down there since it was a 30 minute walk down and I needed to get back so I gave myself 10 more minutes and decided I'd call it a day after that was up. Then I saw a feeding buff pass by, stopping really close to me to feed. I stuck the fly down in it's path and the fish kept moving toward it. Once it was an inch from it, it's head went down again. I saw the fish directly on top of the fly, so I waited a crucial second. Then, a puff of mud went through it's gills. I knew it had the fly then. Hookset and Fish ON!

This was one of the rare occasions where the buff's fight was harder than the carp's fight by a long shot, it took several hard runs and nearly bent the hook straight! I had it in the net soon though, before my 10 minutes was up.
Not bad! This is the first buff on the fly I've caught from LLELA, so that made it even better!

It was time to walk back so I headed back toward the dam. The lighting was perfect for some pictures so I took out the DSLR and snapped a few random pics on the way back.


A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, I'll definitely be back soon before it gets too cold!

Friday, October 28, 2011

New Swim

Lack of posting...I know. Busy fishing

Here's a video Ryan and I recorded last week. Awesome vid on a new water we just discovered. Enjoy!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Pond trip

Hit the library ponds today, caught a few too. Nice mix of bass, bluegill, and greenies before the storm hit. Caught all of them on a blue north fork nymph or a gray/olive clouser.
 Bigmouth

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Buffs, Mud, and Weeds

The secret spot has been pretty fussy this week. The fish are kind of off the feed from the high flows coming from all the rain. The carp want nothing to do with anything i'm presenting them but the buffs wanted to play. Landed 1 out of 3 hooked. Also hooked a carp but somehow it got off.

All I know about this spot right now is it's MUDDY! Ridiculously muddy, it's hard to walk without slipping. Also the weeds are really coming back, gonna have to whip out the machete next time I try to hit it, a few of my spots are getting clogged up with weeds.

Not bad!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

East Texas Session

This past weekend I did a 3 day session with Ryan and Erick at a lake that will remain a secret for a bit. It was pretty slow for almost the whole trip but we had enough jokes going that the session turned out OK, then with a final fish for me that changed everything.

It started with me showing up, semi lost and looking for a swim that suited me. Erick and Ryan wouldn't show up  for another hour or two so I had some time to scout out the are we'd be fishing. I found an old abandoned boat ramp and cast out a marker float once I found a proper spot to set up a bivvy. First cast I marked 16 feet about 45 yards out. perfect. Set the brolly up and began getting all my crap sorted out.

Erick showed up around 7 and we quickly got out in the Diablo and set the marker floats. The Fishfinder on it finally works so I was able to set GPS coords on top of each of the markers so we could re-set them if any of them got moved for any reason(that happened a few times). We started baiting out huge amounts of stuff. Maize, cracked corn, hemp, tigers, boilies, range cubes, everything really. We knew we'd have hell with catfish so we didn't lay off baiting heavily. Soon we had rods in the water. Then the sequence we'd be following over the course of the weekend started to become clear. Catfish....catfish...catfish...another catfish....catfish...you get the point, THEY WERE RELENTLESS! we caught a ton of them, and none of them were decent sized, all were little eater channels, almost identical from fish to fish.

We all started to get hungry and made some stuff to eat, I made some rigs, and it got kind of quiet. Then, we had our first idea of the trip. Fire.

Erick gathered up some stuff and we poured lighter fluid on it. Fire.

It cured our boredom for a few minutes, then we kind of lost interest. Sometime during the first night Erick hung an empty beer bottle on my scale as a "scale cover". It remained there almost till the end of the trip. Several catfish were caught then finally we went to sleep. Until 6, that is, when the boat ramp opened and bass boats started pouring in like ants.

We made some food, recasted, and boated out some bait. This looked like it was going to be another day of catfish and random shenanigans. Which it was, of course.

The first was Ryan's little mud mishap. Yeah, he got stuck a little bit in East Texas's famous mud.
Because of the mud pit here, we have named this swim "the tide pool swim", which may confuse a lot of people when the lake comes back to normal level, where this pool will be 9 feet underwater.

The next thing we did was the catfish fillet contest, which we never really determined a winner because we all sucked. We at least got some edible meat out of the deal and made a nice dinner.

Our pattern contined too, Catfish...catfish...catfish...catfish. It felt like a waste. We weren't seeing anything as far as fish crashing or anything. We kept thinking it would pick up, but it never really did what we wanted it to.

Just when we thought we had been past the worst, the weather forecast said it was going to rain on us sometime that night, so we spent a good 2 hours cleaning everything around our swims up for the rain, which never came. We cooked the catfish, which was pretty good., and sat down and waited for the fish to come. As darkness fell we heard a sound out toward Erick's marker. Sploosh. A fish crashed. Finally they were here....not really. We heard some other crashes through the night but then never found our hookbaits.

That night was lazier than the first. It was spent searching stuff on Youtube, reeling in catfish, and chasing Nutria down the bank.

Yes, Nutria


 We were asleep by 1, and I was up first at 6.

Now the next morning was not really what we expected. I knew nothing would really come together at the last moment like we had wished but I could wish that SOMETHING might happen. That something did.

I reeled in and recasted all 3 of my rods. I casted the middle rod last and got it bang on my marker, within 5 feet to the right of it, I was tightening the line to set the indicator when I started getting catfishy feeling twitches. I kept tightening and the marker moved, I was mad. I knew I hadn't come close to the marker so maybe it drifted or something. I dragged the kayak in the water and paddled out, my rod in one hand, paddle in the other. When I got to the marker something happened. It wasn't connected. At all. It had a fish on it. The bow of the boat swung around back toward open water and the fish began pulling. I slapped the water to wake Ryan and Erick up and yelled "Fish on!". Ryan got up and stretched a little but. He was confused to why I was in the kayak, if I had a fish on, or really what the hell I was doing in the first place. Soon he had the answer, as the fish surfaced and I yelled my observations- "High 30, possibly 40! It's a Buff!" At this point I start stressing. This fish is way over my PB, i'm in a kayak, I only have 1 open hand to paddle with, and I'm 40 yards from the bank. A solution worked itself out and I started the long one handed paddle back to shore. Erick and Ryan waited there with the net, and upon my arrival Erick slipped the net under the fish. WICKED!

Onto the mat. This was a big fish, and a buff at that. Very unexpected. Onto the scale, and the weight is 38lbs 10oz, a new PB and also a water body PB for me. Awesome!

Awesome as it gets.

After the release I just laid back down and tried to calm down. FINALLY a buff PB break, upping my PB from 26-10 to 38-10. Greatness.

We cooked breakfast and began packing to leave. We scouted a few more areas, found a large amount of petrified wood, and I finally got a chance to pull out the camera for some action shots- Distance casting with a 4oz distance lead.
Yeah, Get that proper form down!

That's it!
Perfect!
That's about it for this session, stay tuned for another awesome session in a few weeks!

Monday, October 10, 2011

What's up?

haven't posted in a while! Got all caught up with school. Got some great stuff going up tomorrow from this past weekend's session in East Texas with Ryan and Erick. I broke my PB buff, upped it to a beast of a 38lber right when we thought the session was over.

Got the fishfinder in the Diablo to work finally! I'm going to be fishing out of it a ton now. The bubbles on Grapevine should be fishing good right now, I'll go check that out this week sometime.

Fishing's really great right now for all species, so I should really start posting! haha

New post up tomorrow guys!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

USCP Issue 21

Click here to see the latest issue of USCARPPRO magazine! www.uscarppromagazine.com
Amazing issue this month, USCP just keeps raising the bar with every issue!

Also, GO SEE PAGE 114! Our article from July on the trip to Lake Austin is there! It's 2 stories, Erick and I both wrote in our own account of the trip. Some amazing pictures and a story worth reading. Enjoy!

Just a preview of the article...
Go read it!

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Multispecies day

The secret spot produced pretty well when I was there 2 days ago. Headed out there for an hour with my Clouser 5wt and a pocketfull of flies. Started out trying for carp but ended up sticking an icepick minnow on and caught these on it.

1st crappie ever from the spot


Bass



Buff.



Fly that caught all of 'em, the Icepick minnow.

Pretty good day. I hope that's not the last crappie I'll get from here!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Cool casting pics

Had to get out and flycast for a bit a few days ago for an assignment for Photography class. Of course I didn't want to just cast in the yard so I rigged up the 8wt and hit the library pond. All I really had to do was get some action shots but I went ahead and added a few fish to the shots I had to have for class.





Sunday, September 18, 2011

Happy 1st birthday!

Doesn't seem that long but I started up the blog here 1 year ago today! I feel a lot more coming, so keep reading!

Here's a Vlog I recorded yesterday after Ryan and I's failed float fishing session. Enjoy!

Vlog #1- float session from Austin Anderson on Vimeo.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Weekend Murray session

John and I did an overnight session at Murray in a different swim than the last time I fished it. It wasn't great but the weather was excellent and I got out and fished for the first time in a few weeks.


The session started really slow. We showed up at the swim around 4 on Saturday and had lines in the water by about 5 after some baiting. John just got some new rods and reels and I had to try those out along with several other new bits and pieces but after a few hours with no crashes, no beeps, just nothing, we decided we didn't have enough bait in the water. A little more bait was added and it did the trick, fish started showing consistently.


After a good bit of baiting it was already dark and we ate, recasted, and talked for a bit. Around 1 we noticed the sky started to get dark(full moon, so it was noticable) so we looked up and lo and behold it started to rain. First rain there in almost 3 months, so this was a BIG deal. Didn't rain a ton but it definitely turned the fish on. After making another bucket of method the first fish showed on my rod, a small tiddler of a common, but it was a well welcomed first fish


When John and I make method, we go all out. This method contained more ingredients than I can remember.




first fish came shortly after. 6lbs and some change


The night became quiet shortly after, so it was time to get a few shots with the camera and hit the bedchair. Got a few of these, notice John's homemade banksticks and snag bars he let me use!




After this John picked up a catfish and the rest of the night was quiet till I hooked something that broke off, I think it was a grasser or something.


Few cool morning shots


John about to fire some groundbait balls with the catapult








Ready to go!


Here comes the sun!


My personal favorite pic from the trip


Morning didn't pick up quite as quickly as we had wished but the first fish came a while after sunrise. This fish made quite a ruckus in our swim. Somehow when John netted it he picked up a bloody snake in my net! It got caught but we got it out after a bit of confusion. 

no snakes
 some snakes were harmed in this session




Fish was nice though, tipped the scales at a little over 10




The next fish was special. My first Oklahoma buff! She went 19lb 8oz


Ejected the lead too, I'm not sure I could have landed it without ejecting the lead


Next fish was even more special! 21lb 3oz buff ups my Okie PB and water body PB


Nice fish too! Notice the hump behind the head, fish was too big for it's own body


Gear shot, I'm a tart


Well, that's it! I'm still convinced this swim has lots more to offer. until then I'm sticking with my other swim. Just as a side note all of my fish were caught on tigernuts fished with either a PVA stick of fishmeal pellets or a method ball.

Friday, September 9, 2011

San Antonio- Talapia woes and undersized bass

I was in San Antonio last weekend and fished of course. I tried a place called Roosevelt Park on the San Antonio River both days that I fished. I was surprised at how much flow there actually was there. I didn't do too bad, caught some decent bass, Pretty good spot for being only 10 minutes from the hotel. The thing that immediately caught my eye were the TILAPIA. Tons of them. I had a few eat flies too, but none of them would stay hooked and they were EXTREMELY spooky. They were gone at the slightest ripple. Hooked a nice one but lost it...i'll catch one finally some day. There were some absolutely huge talaps there too. Oh well, here's a bass
That's not gonna cut it, is it guys?
Don't worry, more pics tomorrow. The rest are on my phone and I'm too tired to upload them...I know...lazy