The Blanco with Bishop

I thought, If I'm ever going to have the perfect fishing partner, I better start training him now. Bishop is my ten month old Irish Setter. He's full of vigor, to put it mildly, but all the hours of training are starting to pay off. Today I took Bishop to the Blanco River for some exercise and some fishing. The last time I attempted fishing with him was a small disaster. I had a feeling that this time would be different, and it was. As for the day's fishing program, I knew that I was going to be concentrating my efforts on a certain large pool of the river, so I brought 4 different rods to fish with (G. Loomis Escape series ultra light spin, St. Croix Avid-Micro light spin, TFO Finesse Series 1 wt., and G. Loomis GLX 6 wt.). To make a long story shorter, all rods got a little action. I threw a white deer hair diver and some small foam bugs on the fly rods, and some small jigs and bass assassins on the spinning rods.

I had a good day on the water, but Bishop might argue that he had a better one. He ran, jumped, and swam for the first four hours straight. He chewed on sticks and an old deer jaw bone that he dug up. He even found some goose droppings and a turkey vulture carcass to roll on. That stuff got washed off after a while. He was most intrigued by the fish. There was not a fish brought to shore that Bishop didn't greet first. You can see his big paw in the photo above. He wanted to be in the water in front of me at all times, which made things a little challenging. For instance, he got tangled in my fly line a few times, I hooked him once, he spooked some good fish, and he knocked off a huge bluegill that I wanted a photo of first. Well, you can't have everything, and yet another reason to use barbless hooks!
Thanks partner. We'll get out again soon.

Floating the Llano

There is a small group of friends that have hung around and listened to me babel about nothing important on more than one occasion. I don't get to go fishing with these friends enough, but when I do, It makes me appreciate them even more. A few days ago I floated the Llano River with my old friend Richard Hearn. Rich and I have known each other for about fifteen years. We worked together in the restaurant business, and together as guides in Alaska. Our inside jokes have inside jokes.

This particular day we both had a weekday off, so we made the commitment to get out on a Texas river. Yeah, were those guys hauling down the freeway, passing morning commuters, with a canoe on top of the SUV. We headed up through Fredericksburg, then near Mason to float the Llano. Rich had just read an article about the river and realized he had never had the opportunity to float it. Being a native Texan from Bandera, he had to remedy that before word got out. We floated from Simonsville Road to highway 87. That float is slightly less than four miles but there is a lot of shoreline and rock structures to fish. The rock gardens make this float impassable for rafts. Canoes are best for this section, and even then, there are some obstacles to consider.

Fishing was exceptional this time out. We caught mostly largemouth, and some sunfish. I couldn't get any top water action, but crayfish flies were very reliable when I let them get deep. I got the most gratification from a bass that I didn't land. I casted at the bank where the vegetation made a vertical wall. My lead-eye bunny leach hit the water hard and just before it sunk out of sight, the wall of vegetation opened up and a hefty bass inhaled my fly. Now, I was standing in the canoe, and I had just stripped the slack out of the line when I saw this happen. I immediately made an effort to set the hook with the rod and not with another strip of the line, a common mistake. The fly slipped out of the fish's mouth, and out of the water. The fish darted in the direction that the fly went, but was long gone by the time I swung the fly back in the water. It was an unfortunate mistake, but exciting to see.

Operation Low Tide

Last week Port Aransas was blessed with several days of prime sight casting conditions. The day that we went, there was not a cloud in the sky and the wind was a mild breeze. The tides were low, so, we had to adjust the game plan. Harrison Nash and I noticed that the tide was coming in strong by late morning, but the usual flats never came up enough. We headed north towards middle pass and found a shoreline that had a good number of fish on it. Most of the redfish were small, but there were plenty of them.

This was the second time I had used my zodiac inflatable boat for flats fishing. Some of the places I like to go are just too far to paddle the kayaks. I just anchored the boat, got out, and waded. Later that afternoon I did something I thought I'd never do. I ran this boat on the flats. I was amazed how shallow this little boat would run when on plane. I just didn't want to run out of water or run into something that might damage the pontoons. It was flawless.

Toward the end of the day the redfish seemed a little more spread out, so we drifted a few areas with potholes. This, again, was a first for the zodiac. I left the outboard down in order to prevent getting too shallow. Harrison and I finished the day off by sight casting with soft plastics to redfish. We even picked up one small black drum. If I had to do anything different I think I would have packed less gear on the boat. Less is definitely more, and lighter too!