Breaking New Ground

Just before the rainy effects of the tropical storms in the Caribbean hit Nashville, I scouted a new fishing spot. The water looked promising and I saw plenty of wildlife: wild turkeys, deer, herons, a large snake, but alas no fish!

Drumming up some Action

I have been going back to the spot I mentioned in my last post. No carp landed yet, but I've seen dozens of big ones and had quite a few takes. I did catch a small drum on the fly though - a nice change of pace from bluegills.
This is only the second drum I have ever caught. The first was also on Percy Priest Lake, almost a year ago. I was fishing squid strips with a light tackle spinning rod, casting into a deep hole and retrieving slowly along the bottom.
That drum is probably the biggest fish I have caught on that rod. At the time I wasn't sure what species it was. It's amazing how many fish are out there, and how much one can learn in the course of one year.

Popper of Plenty

After losing my last Gartside Soft Hackle Wet Fly to a hungry brown trout on the Caney Fork, I sat down to tie some more. Naturally, after tying up a number of small nymphs and wets, I wanted to try them out, so the next day I headed down to a spot that I learned about from a local fisherman, Jeremy Simms. In the spring, we had caught plenty of fish there on small drifting nymphs, and though the water is too warm for trout this late in the summer, I was confident that there would be plenty of hungry sunfish. I was right, and though I did catch a couple of bluegills on one of my new nymphs, my little popper was really the star of the day. There were plenty of people fishing unsuccessfully while my little green machine landed fish after fish. People kept asking me what kind of fish were in the river, I think they were hoping for bass or trout, and I told them all I'd seen were sunfish. This was mostly true. In fact I kept seeing carp swim by, but I kept that to myself and made a little mental note to go back and visit them soon.

Revenge of the Me

Still being bitter about losing two good sized trout in Oregon some weeks ago, I decided to get my revenge on the Caney Fork - some of middle Tennessee's premier trout water. This was my first trip to the Caney and it took me no time at all to appreciate it's beauty - high forested banks and clear cool water. The width and depth or the river, the moderate strength of the current, and the gravel bottom make this truly ideal trout water. On the other hand, it took me several hours to figure out how to actually catch the fish, but catch them I did:
I had been nymphing with an indicator, one of the new Thingamabobbers which have gotten so many rave reviews. I don't know if the Caney Fork is just heavily fished, but I felt that the indicator was scaring the fish and so I eventually took it off. Anyway, I had some bites and hooked up two fish, one of which threw the hook on a acrobatic leap, while the other simply broke my tippet and swam away. Eventually though, I got my tackle sorted out, pretty much the same rig I use for everything, but with a #20 bead head nymph tied on. I found that the fish were holding in shoals of maybe 10 fish, and so I cast upstream and let my fly drift down through the group. The #20 was too small to see, but I could see the fish chasing it and after a few casts I landed my first fish. My second came shortly after. I let it go without a photo, but Tara took a picture from the bank while I was playing it:

There is some slack in the line - I think the fish may have jumped just before the photo was taken...

The catch of the day!

Oregon Fishing Part II

While fishing in Oregon, one must visit the cold clear rivers and do some trout fishing. One must also not get frustrated when two good sized rainbows manage to squirm free in the span of five minutes. And one must not swear so loudly as to scare the other fish when one realizes that he does not have his camera when he has finally landed his first, and only, trout of the trip...
Anyway, after success with the carp in the Amazon Slough I went in search of new spots. I found fish feeding in some duck ponds in a park next to the Willamette River, but the place was packed with people feeding ducks and fishing for stocked trout from their lawn chairs most of the day and so I opted to return around dusk. This is the first fish I landed:
I was pretty impressed at this little character's courage in attacking a worm almost as long as itself and thought it deserved a picture. After the sun set the carp moved into the shallows to feed and I was able to spot them with the help of a bright headlamp. I hooked up and lost several fish - including one which was almost in my net, before I caught this beauty:
It picked up my worm and disappeared into the darkness. When I finally stopped it I looked down and saw that I was one turn away from my backing. An excellent run.
The day before I left Oregon, with all my fishing gear packed up, I spent some quality time with my younger brother painting fish on a public graffiti wall. Guess who painted the carp?