Fishing Aquila Dam Spillway

A dirt road under an already fiercely hot Texan sky, and this is only mid May, a foretaste of the blast furnace to come. The heat and light bring an intensity, throwing everything into high relief. Not dissimilar, when you think of it, to one of those annoying filters on your cell phone camera, Satanbook or Instagram.

Well, this art blog's banned from Instagram and Satanbook, but not from the Aquila dam spillway and there it was, ready for action. I say action, I've never dialed this spot in to any great extent, but figured it'd make a change from Lake Whitney. So off I went in search of Catfish, Gar and anything else that came along in the midday heat.

Thanks to the pythonic wisdom of our latter day Delphi, Youtube, I came armed with frozen shad, worms, tiny baitholder hooks and small circle hooks. Idea being that you cast for catfish with the small circles, weightless and baited with worms, and send out shad fixed to a perch hook tied to a bobber for Gar.

Gar philosophy's interesting, at least to me, because they're an incredible game fish and well worth the sport - minutes, it seems like hours, of subterfuge, patience, false starts, new beginnings,  and then BAM, set the hook and off you go. A thrashing, jumping, prehistoric monster's on your line and it's game on. Tiny hooks seem one way to go, as they'll pass unnoticed by the fish who gleefully swallows your shad, allowing you to go for a hookset in the corner of Gar's mouth when it goes for its second run.

OK, fine, but before all of this excellence, the fish has to actually go for the bait. Normally this isn't an issue, Gar are notoriously ready biters, but not today at Aquila spillway. I had a few bites and a coupe of halfhearted runs, but the fish dropped the shad in boredom and disgust before I could even think of closing the deal. Huh. I put it it down to heavy fishing pressure, and maybe the rig needs rethinking.

A few bites on the worms though, with a small catfish coming ashore and a larger one who slipped the hook at the bank, annoyingly. Still, good fight. Should I have hooked the small cat with a big circle hook and used it as live bait for Leviathan Cats? Certainly thought about it, but the little fella went back to fight again another day.

So there you have it. A good day out in the sun and a fair amount of action, if little catching. Did the fish win this this round? Yes, they did, but watch out underwater adversaries, this isn't over, not by a long chalk.

Moral? Don't sit at home, staring blank-faced at a screen when you can get outdoors and fish. In other news, all the commies are mad because our President's taking hydroxy and zinc and isn't sick.

Fish on, or not,

LSP

Ferocious Fishing

The sun shone down on the mighty Brazos like the hand of God and we had the Lake Whitney dam spillway pretty much to ourselves. An auspicious start, fortified by a first light men's prayer breakfast with the cowboys at ORCC. Would starting the day right make for good fishing?

It sure did. We cast off into the pool with frozen shad and it was pretty much a strike with every cast. I say strike but don't be fooled, these were gar strikes and that's a different kind of thing altogether. Gar, ferocious prehistoric ambush predators that they are, are also weirdly shy.

They'll take the bait, hold it, sensing for threat, and then run with it. Sometimes they'll just take and run, but whatever the case, the temptation's strong to set the hook like you would for a bass or some kind of normal fish. 

As the Good Book says, resist that temptation. Seriously, because chances are if you try and set the hook too soon or even have too much resistance in the form of drag, the fierce but strangely scarified gar will drop your bait and swim off. And don't forget the added issue of a successful hookset in the gar's bony beak. Not easy.

That said, the Cadet sent out delicious if slimy shad into the water and played the game, letting the pleistocene monsters take the bait, meditate on it, run with it, stop for a solemn collect, run again and  then boom! Pull back and set that hook.

Rod double, big fish, leaping, monster, thrashing action. Then try and bring the beast in, which isn't easy because they'll bite through your line (use a steel/heavy duty leader) or pull your hook off into the depths in 4+' prehistoric fury.

The kid got three gar to my one, well done. However, I did manage to pull out a catfish, which evened things out a bit.

I tell you, what a lot of fun. Gar can be great gamefish, though they take a lot of patience and a bit of thought. And here's the thing, other people turned up with long-distance casting setups, they were fishing for striper, and mostly caught nothing. We caught far more and had way more action.

There's a moral here, if you care to draw it.

Tight lines,

LSP

It's An Oven, Get On The Fish

It was a typically chilly Texan 104* and I looked at Blue Climate Change panting in his fur coat, "Perhaps it's time to go fishing, Gar like the heat." 

The dog said nothing, he regards my Gar obsession as foolish. All he's after is a better argument for Sola Scriptura (sorry, dog, fail) and against what he calls "the Abomination of Desolation!" 

Inner Light

No, I tell him. Having a statue of the Blessed Ever Virgin Mary in your church is not a sin against the Holy Spirit or any other kind of idolatry. He refuses to listen and wanders off in search of fried pies.

So much for the dog. I went in search of space and found Gar, lots of them, but only closed the deal on two, along with one miscreant Black Drum and a couple of opportunistic Bluegill. 

Beat The Drum

The Gar, furiously, bit through the line as they were being hauled up to the pier for a photo op. 

Maybe a steel leader is in order.

Beat the Jihad and Build the Wall,

LSP

I Fought The Gar And The Gar Won

Keen-eyed readers of this popular international mind blog will know that Gar fishing is in the air like some kind of obsession. One of the best things out there, get on the Gar.

Which I did, fishing for Gar and Gar only. It started off well, with the Triassic beasts taking shad baited hooks and running around the spillway pool. Big excitement, well done, then they'd drop the bait in disgust, just as you're about to set the hook. 

This went on for hours; moments of intense excitement followed by let down as the Gar swum off.

Some Guy With A Gar

I tried all kinds of presentations and half the time the dinosaurlike fish were receptive. They'd pounce on the bait, play with the bait, chew on the bait, snap their jaws on the bait and run with it, and then drop it after five or so minutes of surging around.

Neat to watch, less neat to see the shad dropped right at the moment you're about to close the deal. And that's just it, all I caught was an accidental Bluegill, no Gar.

The Bush War

So what went wrong? The bait was right, the hooks were right and the Gar were taking them. The failure, surely, lay in the hookset. Perhaps I waited too long, erring on the side of caution, afraid that the fish would drop their delicious shad if I moved too soon.

Well I didn't and they did anyway. Obviously a more aggressive approach is called for.

A Gar

Next time, allow the Gar to move into its second run and while its powering forward like a torpedo, lift the rod hard, driving the sharp hook into the Gar's teeth. Then you'll have a fish on and no mistake. It's doable, I know this from experience.

Saying that, why not rig up a tiny fly hook and tempt topwater? Therein, perhaps, lies madness.

I tell you, Gar, this isn't over. Not by a long shot.

Fish on or off,

LSP

Deep in The Heart of Texas

Well, deep in Texas, anyway, trying to break the summer Bass code. To help us in this, we launched an old V-Hull into the Big Pond, the objective being to get into the center of the lake and fish in deeper, colder waters.

At first all went well. The trolling motor worked, the wind was was at our backs and the going was easy. Shad, like miniature dolphins, schooled and leaped all around us. Good news, where the Shad leap, there bite the Bass. So goes fishing wisdom.

Then disaster struck. The battery wound down and the relentless current, driven by a fierce Texan wind, swept us to the far bank. Nothing for it but to row back, as opposed to actually fishing.

What was learned? There is a spot, in the middle of the pond, where there's a superabundance of Shad. Get there and fish appropriately and chances are you'll catch Leviathan Bass. Also, get a working battery and an anchor. Proper preparation prevents...

Then it was time to head back to the Compound, in the golden light of a setting sun. And there's nothing wrong with that, at all.

TEXIT,

LSP

Crazy Mental Insane Fishing

There I was at Lake Whitney, casting away without a whole lot of success, and my luck was mirrored by the multi-ethnic band of anglers that make up modern America's fishing community. Good people, no doubt about it, but no one was catching any fish.

Then Shad started schooling in the channel, about 30 yards off of the bank. You could see them flicking out of the water and swirling in ever increasing numbers. I waded out along a submerged ledge to get in the action and send my lure into the Shad in the hope of picking up feeding Bass. 

Random Widemouth

Not much was happening, just more and more of the jolly little Shad messing about in the water. Then it happened. A surging, leaping, exploding wall of Bass broke the water about 30 feet off to the left, blitzing the Shad.

Staring in wonderment at the Bassnado, I cast into the thickest part of the surge and down went the lure. No twitching, no scientific retrieve, just boom. Fish on. Two fish were on in fact, one on each treble, and that became apparent as I reeled them in to the ledge. I held them up for my wading wary Latino pals to see, "Ha! Topwater!" they thought that was pretty cool, "You're on them, man."

No sooner were the Hybrids back in the water to live to fight another day, than another wave of marauding Bass exploded up. Cast! And another catch. This went on for about 30 minutes, as Bass tsunami after tsunami burst on the merry little band of Shad. 

I tell you, it was crazy, mental, insane, fast fishing. Watching the ferocity of the Bass erupting out of the water was excitement enough. Catching them only added.

Then the sun was setting and it was over; time to head back to the compound.

God bless,

LSP

Go Fishing, After Mass

God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation 

than angling.  

Izaak Walton

With Walton's Compleat Angler in mind I went fishing, after Mass. It was good to stand on the bluffs overlooking Lake Whitney and cast off in the hope of big fish, though I was more in it for relaxation and quiet concentration than anything else.

Not knowing the water, I tried the shotgun approach, which means throwing in a variety of lures to see if anything works, in this case plastics, spinners, a silver spoon and a crankbait shad. No result with the plastic worms and the spoon got hung up as I bounced it off the bottom. Contrary to the spirit of Mr. Walton, I made a bit of a ruckus trying to unsnag the thing but no joy, the lure was stuck, so I cut the line. Just then, a large gray Catfish rose up from the depths and circled around and above the watery tomb of the spoon. It was like a baby shark, no fooling.

Compleat

This taught me that big Catfish live under the bluffs on that part of the lake and that they can and will be caught if I fish accordingly. Think positive, fisherman. After the spoon, I had a bit of action on the crankbait, which was partially hit by a Bass as it lured its way near the surface, but no strike and I called it a day.

Look. It's a Fish.

Just for kicks, I cast off in a shallow part of the water on the way to the truck, using a small green spinner. Why not? Maybe the fish will find it irresistible, I thought to myself, and sure enough, after a couple of casts a ferocious little Bass attacked the lure like a social justice warrior at a Trump rally. And that was that.

Fish on,

LSP