Archive

Exploring

Some Sabine bow time back in June

August 17, 2022
Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Outdoors, Saltwater, Scouting, Sightfishing
Leave a comment

Back in June I had the pleasure of joining my friend Josh on a trip to fish out of his “new-to-him” Sabine Micro. Sabines are designed and built by another friend of mine, Brian Little, over in Texas. They are aluminum technical poling skiffs that are designed to have no hull slap on the water. They are very nice boats and what a joy it was to finally fish out one! A long time ago, pre-kids, I fished with Brian out of a fiberglass skiff he built in his garage in New Orleans. I was floored then by his craftsmanship and attention to detail and things have only gotten better now that he has full blown production models.

Josh picked his boat up in Texas and was on his way back home to Alabama. He wanted to fish the marsh somewhere in Louisiana and I was lucky enough to get the invite to go and lucky enough that I had time to break away to fish. We arrived after sun up in St. Bernard Parish to excellent conditions and had a pleasant ride out to the marsh. The tide was a bit higher than I like but eventually we caught our first redfish on conventional tackle and got the skunk off.

It was a privilege to slide the first fish into Josh’s new boat. It was a beauty of a redfish too, a typical sweetwater red like you find down in da Parish.

Neither of us are purists so I was switching between fly and conventional, mainly due to the water level. We weren’t seeing a whole lot of fish and when we did it was a little late to get a good cast off to them. It’s kind of frustrating when it works out that way, but that’s usually why I have back up conventional gear, for those just-in-case situations. In a deep bayou I caught a little trout and lost him at the boat, then I hooked into a hammer trout and after a short fight lost him at the boat as well. I was trying to work my way down from the casting platform to get the net for a no doubter 20″+ trout, but he ran under the boat and worked himself free from the hook. It was heartbreaking. I rebounded with another redfish, but losing that trout was tough.

Later in the morning with the fly rod in hand we spotted a redfish moving some distance ahead in a pond we were in. It was at the far end of my comfortable casting distance and after a couple of false casts I bombed a shot to this fish and hoped for the best. It happened to land exactly where I needed it to and even curled the line so as to not spook the fish. A fool would think I did it on purpose, I can’t explain it, but that’s how it worked out. The fish pounced on the fly and I set the hook on what I thought was our first fly caught red for the boat. Shortly into the fight I realized it was a sheepshead! A welcome swap for me, the ‘ol Cajun permit was eager to eat my friend David Roger’s fly.

Throughout the morning storms were popping up in the distance and shortly after the sheep was landed lightning started popping off that was a little too close for comfort. We decided it was better to be safe than sorry and call it a day. Josh had time to make the drive back home by quitting then too so it just made sense.

It was a treat to fish with Josh out of his new boat, I’m very thankful for the invite. The boat was fantastic and I can’t recommend Sabine enough if you’re in the market for a bombproof flats skiff. It’s the quietest aluminum boat you’ll ever ride in. That Yeti chair you see in some of the pics is the real deal too. Josh had picked that up and it was a perfect fit in the Micro. It made for a super comfortable ride. The fishing wasn’t on fire, but we were able to land a few fish and I think it was a good shakedown run.

North Georgia Brook Trout

August 5, 2022
Adventure, Coldwater, Conservation, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Hiking, Outdoors, Scouting, Travel, Wade Fishing, Waterfall
3 Comments

We just recently got back from a family vacation to North Georgia. I was able to get a little fishing in on the creek behind the cabin while up there and I even snuck away to a blueline one morning to fish for some brook trout. The southernmost native range for the brook trout is found in North Georgia. Don’t mistake that for being fringe habitat, Georgia is a great place to target little wild brookies.

The water was low and clear the entire week we were up there, making fishing on the creek at the cabin a little more technical and a bit tough. I figured I’d be in dry fly heaven on a blueline trip, but waited all week to go and overnight a bunch of rain dumped in this little watershed that’s a tributary to the Toccoa River. I really didn’t know what to expect heading out to fish, but figured at worst I’d have a nice walk in the woods, so I was heading out to fish regardless.

Upon walking up to the creek, it was obvious the water was high and stained, but I could still see bottom in areas so I wasn’t completely disappointed. I just had to change up my dry fly expectations and focus on something subsurface. I tied on a jig bugger and went to work.

I’ve never fished this creek before so this was also a bit of a scouting trip. I knew it had brook trout based on research, but I really wasn’t sure how far up I had to go before I found them. I planned out my access from a topo map and would fish up to a road crossing from there.

The creek was a bit of a mess early on. Lots of downed timber and tight casting windows through rhododendron tunnels. Lots of bow and arrow casts were made. Water that would be perfect for a dry fly had the conditions been there for it. There were spots where it opened up a bit and eventually, maybe an hour into my trip, I even missed a strike. That was the glimmer of hope I was looking for!

A few holes later and I actually had my first fish on. When I got it into the net I could tell it was a brook trout and had validation that this indeed was a good place to access the creek.

It was a little guy, but a native brook trout nonetheless, mission accomplished. Pressure was off now, but I wasn’t done fishing. I kept climbing up the holes and the further I got upstream the better the water started to look. It could have been time since the last rain, passing up a big feeder creek, or a combo of both, but eventually I felt like I may be able to now catch them on a dry-dropper rig, so I re-rigged.

The re-rig wasn’t a failure as soon after I landed another brook trout, this one a little bigger than the last. He ate the dropper nymph, which was a little BHRLHE (beadhead rubber-legged Hare’s Ear). It was a good fight on my 3/4wt TFO Finesse glass rod.

Things were going pretty good, I was continuing to work my way upstream, and I felt like the fishing was picking up. It was about this time that God decided I needed a little excitement in my life. As I moved around a live tree that was downed in the water I went to cast to the next hole and got buzzed by a big fly. Next thing I know this sucker lands on me and I feel a big punch on my eyebrow. It was a big ass hornet! He wasn’t alone either. I threw down my rod, started swatting around my face with my hat, dropping my sunglasses in the process, got stung two more times on my left hand, and tore off upstream a short distance until there was a logjam I’d have to navigate over or around. I was hopeful this was far enough away that they were done chasing and thankfully it was. I swiftly and calmly recollected my things and nursed my wounds as I traversed the logjam now keenly aware of my surroundings. As far as I knew I wasn’t allergic to hornets and when I didn’t see any significant swelling on my hands I figured I could press on.

I was glad I didn’t panic and kept fishing because things were heating up. I caught two in a row shortly thereafter and then my biggest fish of the day. It happened while I was fishing a tight run under some overhanging rhodos. It was a good fish, longer than my hand, which was saying something for a North Georgia native. The sky darkened up on me just as I was landing the fish so the pics don’t really do it justice – it was so dark out that my phone was in night mode taking pics.

It was only a matter of time before the skies would open up, but for some reason that wasn’t much of a concern to mean until they did. I failed to pack a rain jacket or even an extra pair of clothes so it was sure to be a wet ride home. I managed one more little guy before I got to a massive barrier falls. I didn’t even know it was here as it wasn’t labeled on the topo map. It was impressive though. It was here that the rain started falling and it fell hard.

It was raining, it was lunch time, I had reached a surprise waterfall, caught a few brookies and survived a run in with some hornets. It seemed like as good a time as any to head out. It was cool catching brookies below this barrier falls, perhaps there was another one downstream. I know there are plenty of rainbows in the mainstream of this watershed so something has to be preventing them from getting up this far. I’ll have to re-visit this blueline next time I’m in town and see if I can find that point further downstream.

Catching cichlids in New Orleans

July 21, 2022
Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Outdoors, Sightfishing, Warmwater
4 Comments

Back in June I got a wild hair to spend a morning fishing in City Park down in New Orleans. I wanted to target the non-native Rio Grande (or Lowland, apparently there may actually be two different species in the Park) cichlids that have made a home for themselves in the Park. I’ve caught a few in my life, but never really targeted them explicitly, so today was the day. I settled in on the lagoon where I’ve caught them in the past and went to work.

Southern Swamp Lily (Crinum americanum)

The water was super clear, as is typically the case in this lagoon, and probably a bit lower than normal due to our mild Spring drought (it didn’t rain 1000″ in South Louisiana this Spring). Temps were on the abnormally hot side for June which meant a pop-up thunderstorm could happen at any point. We had already reached our summer weather pattern here in South Louisiana. It was going to be a hot, humid sweatfest of a day.

This lagoon is pretty heavily vegetated aquatically and around the perimeter so you can really only cast in select spots. I popped into a few and eventually found one where I could see a pair of cichlids in the super shallows. They looked like they may have been preparing to spawn as they displayed some “guarding the nest” behavior. I’m not real worried about disturbing an invasive species during it’s spawn so this worked in my favor in terms of being able to sight fish them. After a few errant casts I was able to place a nymph close enough to illicit an eat. The eat was slow, but deliberate, and in short time I had my first cichlid on the day.

I botched an attempt at the other cichlid, a bigger one, that this fish was paired up with and after bidding my bird friend behind me adieu I moved on.

Yellow-crowned night-heron (Nyctanassa violacea)

I switched from a weighted pattern to an unweighted nymph and that slower sink rate proved to be just the ticket in this shallow vegetated part of the lagoon.

As I worked my way around the pond I missed a couple more sightfishing attempts, including a fish on a beetle pattern I was using above my Tellico nymph, before bringing another one to hand. I had him all the way to the bank, a big one, but lost him as I went to lift him above the tall vegetation along the shoreline.

I was able to redeem myself though and did catch the next couple of fish on the beetle. The topwater eat was a very slow slurp, almost like a cutthroat sucking down a dry fly, so it took a little more patience to not pull the fly right out of their mouth.

Content with the handful of Rios I caught I decided to pack it up and head to some nearby canals to continue targeting non-native species and try my luck with a more discerning freshwater fish, the common carp.

The beautiful, majestic straight-line canals of Metairie hold plenty of carp and gar for the fly angler who likes to be frustrated. They aren’t hard to find, you can see them rooting around the bottom of the canal searching for food. I have a hard time connecting with them though, it seems like you’ve got to have everything perfect in order to get an eat. By perfect I mean the fly has to be right, the distance ahead of the fish has to be far enough so that it doesn’t spook on the splash, but close enough that it can pick it up while it hoovers the bottom, and then you have to be able to set at that critical moment when they do eat, which is often fairly hard to detect. This is why I’ve only previously caught only one of these bastards. Thankfully my second came about an hour into trying for them which, I’ll admit, could have been far worse.

It was lunch time at this point and starting to really heat up so I packed it up and headed on out. I’m not that dialed in on the carp so it seems to me like only someone who is a real glutton for punishment could enjoy carp fishing. That being said the challenge of trying to fool a carp was exciting and catching Rios at City Park was a lot of fun so overall the morning was a complete success.