Don't Be A Pathetic Lib, Fish

Now that the risible "Russians hacked the election" narrative is dying the death of a thousand failing PR spins, the team decided to go fishing. We'd tried Soldiers Bluff the day before and the young 'un did well with a good sized Hybrid but I struck out. Today would be different, I promised, at the dam spillway.

Sure enough it was. The water churned and foamed and we cast off with circle hooks and worms. A few minutes in and Boom! out came a decent Black Drum and we could see the Gar schooling off the current. Big excitement as the prehistoric looking river monsters circled and prowled like submarines in search of prey.

After a few false starts, as the fickle Gar took the bait, ran with it and then let go, I felt an encouraging tug on the line. That firmed up, the rod bent double and the fight was on; I thought I'd caught a Catfish but no, a big Bass broke the surface and tried to run downstream. Sorry fish, you're coming in and up came a decent sized Leviathan. Great result.

Then the Cadet started catching, Black Drum, and that's the main thing. You want kids to experience the action so that they get into the sport. Otherwise they'll be tempted to write it all off as a boring game of waiting for endlessly non-appearing evidence and give up. Or worse yet, be forced to retract the story altogether as a phony piece of CNN-style agitprop.

That wasn't the case today; it was fish on and thank you mighty Brazos for the opportunity.

Tight lines,

LSP

Spillway Action

I had two objectives, apart from seeing Hillary behind bars, the first being to show my Wittgensteinian pal, GWB, the sheer value and power of the weightless worm rig (WWR). The second, obviously, was to make up for Sunday's washout and catch a lot of fish.

Things got off to a slow start. AT&T came over and gave the Compound a new internet called "Uverse." The tech who installed the Internet was alright, friendly, competent, and good with dogs. I was taken aback by all these things. Well done, AT&T guy. Then we noticed that GWB's rig had a flat tire, as flat as Hillary's bogus "woman who cares for the people" act. So that had to be fixed.

In the end, a couple of hours late and in the heat of the day, we got to the dam. Sure enough, there were lots of fish, especially great hunter-killer packs of Gar, suspended in search of prey. And plenty of other fish too, just like in Seaworld. So we cast off with the worms and I have to say the action was sluggish. 

I hauled in a Black Drum and a couple of Hybrids but that was it, GWB wasn't getting anything either. "The fish hate your useless worm rig, so-called LSP," he chided, and swapped out to lures and plastics. I liked that, work out what artificials the fish like and report back. Then things changed.

Ho, Ho! A Bass. Boom.

Casting downstream off the end of the pier, I noticed a lot of Bass in the water, flashing in their quest to get upstream, into the pool and into the jaws of the waiting Gar. Twitch, tap, Boom. A Bass was on and fighting ferociously, and in he came. Good work, WWR. I alerted GWB to the spot and before long he was reeling in a Bass with every cast, all on a Texas rigged green ribbontail. Nice action.

Oh, Well Done, LSP, You Caught a Fish

I joined in with live worms and got the same result, big fun, then moved off in search of Catfish. And they were biting; I reeled in a decent sized fighter and a couple of juniors, then returned to the Bass. They were still on; then, just as though a switch had been flicked, the feeding frenzy was over. Time to go.

And that, readers, was that. I find great satisfaction in fishing, in case you wondered. Anticipation and the excitement of the strike, the fight itself, and just being outside in the country. To say nothing of reeling in the fierce predators. 

Next stop? Get back on the horse and shoot some guns.

Your Friend,

LSP

Mix it up, Fool!

Everyone's bored of "the usual spot" and stories of Bluegill rising from the depths and into the fry pan, and I don't blame you. It's been samey. So, with an eye on adventure, I went to the other side of lake Whitney dam, to the spillway, to see what was up.

I'll tell you what was up, SeaWorld. A brief recce from the top of the riprap told me there were plenty of fish in the channel, and in the pool beneath the fishing pier. Big Gar, up to 4' long, maybe larger, sizable catfish, suspended in wait of prey, schools of young Sand Bass darting about and who knows what else. Just all kinds of fish, visible through the technology of a pair of polarized Ugly Stick sunglasses. Cheap, maybe $10 at Walmart.

Excited at the prospect of catching a monster, I cast off with a light rod, 12lb test, a treble hook and a worm, weightless (WWR). Natural presentation and no resistance rules, says fishing wisdom. Well, let's see about that, I thought, cynically.

Kaboom! No sooner had the worm begun to sink than something hit it like a Rhodesian Light Infantry flying column. Thrash! Drag out! Rod bent double, and remember, it's a light rod. Then up came a Gar; they're gentle giants, for all their ferocious prehistoric teeth, and this was a young one. Back you go, my friend.

Just for kicks, I moved down the pier and cast off by the wall of the dam. There were big Catfish lurking in the depths, you could see them, and who knows, maybe they'd be interested in the weightless worm rig.

After a few minutes waiting, what cost patience?, something most certainly was. The fish tore out into mid-pool and dived ferociously for the bank, then back again. A fighter. This went on for maybe 5 minutes, which seemed like the 10 seconds of forever, until the fish was finished. I reeled him in. A Catfish, not a monster, but not far off, either. 

An hour or two later, Striper, Black Drum, and more Catfish than I could be bothered to count struck the WWR and came in. Pretty much every cast a fish, and good ones, too. If I'd had a cooler, well, there'd be a big fish fry tonight.

As it is, a couple of fat Bluegill are about to hit the pan.

Fish On,

LSP

Holy Trinity Fishing

It's the Feast of the Holy Trinity today, so I decided to celebrate by fishing Lake Whitney's spillway after the second Mass. After clambering down the steep and treacherous rip rap, I set up on the shore of the fast moving Brazos and cast off with a striper lure. It seemed to be getting bites, very encouraging, and then it got snagged. Well done, striper lure, you caught a rock.

In the meanwhile, Gar, some of them large, were cruising the bank like submarines. Maybe the Gar will go for a crankbait shad, I thought decisively, and sure enough they did; before long it was ambushed by one of the prehistoric creatures. 

Great excitement! Get that fish! But don't rush, let the Gar take the bait and run with it, don't go for a premature hookset and lose it all, that's the method. But in this case, the ferocious looking monster, and it was, lifted the lure up out of the water, fixed me with its eye, shook the fakey little plastic shad about and then spat it out. You could almost hear the spit, I think I did hear it. Take that, LSP, spat the Gar.

Hunh. Back to the tackle box for another solution. Seeing as fishing is all about science, I relied on intuition and picked out a cheap silver spoon, the kind you buy at Walmart for $2.00. Throw that in the water and see what happens.

A small Hybrid Striper was what happened, who hit the spoon about 30 yards off the bank and fought all the way in. Fierce little fella. If it's not broken, don't fix it, says Fishing Wisdom, and I repeated the silver spoon trick, casting out to midstream, letting the current take it across the channel towards the bank and then reeling it in. The idea being to get opportunistic hits midstream and pick up fish waiting in ambush out of the current. Science.

7 or 8 Hybrids/Sandies and one baby Widemouth later I called it a day and clambered back up the treacherous rip rap to the rig. Don't fall off the rocks and break your neck, fool, I thought grimly to myself, rods in hand. Several carabiners, pitons and traverses later I was back at the truck, unscathed. Not only did I get some neat after Mass fishing in, but also a well-needed rock climbing refresher. Two birds, one stone, as it were. And here's the thing.

The fish weren't large but they were big fun, and that's what it's all about.

Fish On,

LSP

Texas Floods, So You Fish

Texas is mostly underwater, which forces us to fish. I tried out the old chicken liver and night crawlers method today, all in the hope of getting a monster catfish.

That meant clambering over the bluffs looking down on lake Whitney, and dropping a Carolina rigged treble hook baited with liver onto a recently submerged limestone ledge. I'd seen two big Channel Cats grazing there, so my hopes were up.

OK, Not a Monster, But Still, A Fish.

I left the rod in its holder and waited for the liver to do its trick while I fished the topwater with lures. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes, down went the float, out played the line, and the rod bent with a vengeance. Big excitement, no doubt about it, and I dropped the one rod and scrambled for the other. Reel that fish in! And I did, or at least started to, then... nothing. Whatever it was dropped the bait. 

Fierce Little Thing

My guess is that a Gar hit the liver and ran with it but let go after discovering something was up, they do that. Nothing was biting after that, so I moved on to less adventurous water and was rewarded by a Catfish and a Sunfish.

Gratuitous Texan Sunset Over Lake Whitney

They hit worms on treble hooks in shallow water with the kind of zeal you'd expect from Bernie Sanders promoting the Communist Manifesto. Aggressive beasts, fish. And that, readers, is that, except that it isn't, because the challenge is still on for a big Cat.

Fish on,

LSP

The Waters Rage and Foam

I went down to the Lake Aquila spillway to get some angling action in, and sure enough, the waters raged and foamed. But where was that Leviathan?

I went downstream to find him and set up on the bank; it was neat to cast into the swift current, though I didn't get any bites. Fish were jumping, though, in mid-stream and that was tantalizing. Maybe with the right surface bait I'd have caught something; or not, the water was moving fast.

Then, like a lazy submarine, a Gar moved into the bank and I gently lowered a hook-full of worm into the water. Perhaps this was the Leviathan, and sure enough, the Gar took the bait.

But Gar are curious creatures, they like to test the bait before they bite and that's what this one did. I played along and gave the fish plenty of line, and I thought I had him.

The strangely prehistoric creature surfaced and snapped angrily at the worm. Yes! He's on! I thought, and made to set the hook. Too soon. The fish sensed something wasn't right and dropped the bait, and that was that. A smaller hook would've done the trick, I think, but as with everything else, hindsight's 20/20.

A Gar

Still, I'm not complaining. It was good to get out and I enjoyed talking with the fishermen. One of them had brought a bow, to shoot the Gar. Maybe I should get one. 

Fish on,

LSP