yeah, I've been fishing - long post, catching up

Share your fishing adventures, especially ones using antique tackle!
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Ron Mc
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yeah, I've been fishing - long post, catching up

Post by Ron Mc »

This was Christmas Day.
Don't get my daughter until Wednesday, and that will be our Christmas day. Saw my sister, niece, nephew and his new baby last night, so I went to the river today.
Overcast and no hatches, but I love fishing BWOs - wasn't a great day, but I did all right.
Fishing down and across wet-fly swings - my favorite way to fish.
Busted two miles upriver - I wanted the exercise. Nothing on the way up, not even fish sign.
Finally hooked up below the busted weir.
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Fishing my South Bend 323 blue collar bamboo with my favorite c. 1930 Russell
This was my fish of the day - the big ones have been eluding me so far this winter - and not complaining
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I saw a redd in the river in a beautiful gravel bed.
Christmas dinner at the busted weir - Opa's dried sausage from Fredericksburg, chased with a cigar, of course.
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Coming back down at Lefty Ray's hole, got into a gang of little trout on the swing. I saw one caddis skittering, and no BWO hatch, but they're probably already cued into the motion at that spot. I split pretty even between the caddis and BWO.
Thought the color was cool on this little male.
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I wasn't the only one out fishing.
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A great day, and I'm plenty tired, which was the real goal.
Merry Christmas all (all y'all)
The day after Christmas
tough day today. Cold and overcast and when the sun came out, the wind whipped up.
This morning I saw a fish get caught by a fine gentleman whom I enjoyed fishing with.
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But fish were down.
I finally went to a sinking line and streamers and found them down there.
This girl put a bend in the rod
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far from the camera and a short focal length, but she's a good 15 inches, solid and healthy

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(Heddon 8' 1-3/4f No. 14 Thorobred and Young pattern 2a marked for R Kerr Montreal)
Christmas Henry
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weekend before last
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and last weekend:
I've said before there are more missed opportunities in fishing than anything else, and you have to take it all as good, so this was good - honestly, great to witness this.
Went out with a couple of trout wizard buddies yesterday, but didn't expect to get shown up with such aplomb.
I did great in the morning, went out with my little 3-wt. Leonard Fairy Catskill that swings BWOs so well. We traveled a long way.
My braided-butt fluorocarbon leaders are awesome for this work because everything below the butt sinks so well.
The rod is such great dry fly rod, though, and I always take a second reel with a tapered nylon leader
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This girl was my fish of the day - she's a good 14 inches, short focal length, deep in the net, etc. - and was a hoot on the little rod. She had traveled a long tedious way over a half-mile of flagstone that was an osprey gauntlet to find a safe niche. She had a claw bite on her other side.
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We also found scattered fish on the flagstone, and Steve managed to land a palomino and got a strike from an 18" jade-colored hen with rosy sides. All her color was turned on, making herself dark on the peat patches in the dolomite ruts. Really a gorgeous sight, though.

A lot of you know my friend Steve F. from FFF Conclaves. Glad we got to fish together, long overdue, and I got to show him some water in our home tailwater he had never seen except from the road.

After lunch, I switched to a very fast streamer rod and sinking line to dredge a deep hole and only got a couple of strikes. So I took my fast streamer rod and rigged it for nymphing and followed my buddies upriver. This was my mistake in not taking the same tackle I started with in the morning - it would have all been different.
Caught a redhorse on the way up.
When I got to the top, Steve was in the most amazing dry fly event I have ever seen on the Guadalupe.
The trout were moving around in the shallows and taking dries - they didn't care what, they took them all. Watching the trout and picking the lane, you could drift 3 or 4 rising trout in a single cast.
Steve caught 20 trout on dries. He was fishing a venerable glass Fenwick FF755, which is a superb dry fly rod.
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I'm fumbling with my leaders, found a 7-1/2' 3x nylon, didn't have nylon tippet and borrowed 6' of 6x from Steve, which I promptly knotted on the fast rod. It took a snappy strike to hook these quick guys. And of course with my fast streamer rod I broke off the first good fish I hooked.
Still a great day with great exploring.
And I will be prepared next time.
Last edited by Ron Mc on Wed Jan 11, 2012 9:25 am, edited 4 times in total.
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john elder
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Post by john elder »

Great travelogue, as usual, Ron!
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Ron Mc
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Re: yeah, I've been fishing - long post, catching up

Post by Ron Mc »

OK, went out with a dry fly rod yesterday and redeemed myself (DR Stone Thomas Light Special, with the finest tips you've ever seen). We didn't have the quality of dry fly event that we had two weeks ago, but I got 7 trout on dries, which is a pretty cool afternoon on the Guadalupe.
I went through a bevy of sizes, starting with 16, down to 18 (was very happy to get the 18 tied on, and for that reason probably left it on too long...).
But I did see a couple of size 12 creamy mayflies flying.
Steve was catching trout on a size 12 nymph, so I reached into my old box and pulled out the biggest, ugliest size 12 mayfly I ever tied.
Happy to redeem myself.
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not the biggest, but the only one I photographed the fly in his mouth.

This story is the best comparison I can think of for what constitutes a dry fly rod, as well as parabolic vs. progressive taper.
A dry fly rod must have a fast mid with a soft tip (progressive or super-progressive taper).
The parabolic streamer rod I took upstream two weeks ago has a soft mid and fast tip. An absolute rocket for launching a woolly bugger all the way across the river. But on dries, when I didn't snap, I missed the fish, and when I snapped, the mid loaded, then when it unloaded, the fast tip snapped the 6x tippet on good fish. Like I said - happy to redeem myself.
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Ron Mc
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Re: yeah, I've been fishing - long post, catching up

Post by Ron Mc »

pictures of me.
My buddy Floyd just send these from yesterday
We ended up with Steve and Bruce looking for the same hatch

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