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

Texas Crazy Rain

One of the things the team looks forward to after Sunday Mass is fishing, and not just any old fishing. No, we like to go to a secret location somewhere in Texas and catch enormous, absurdly large, leviathan size Bass on light rods. Just a whole lot of fun.

That plan didn't work out because of the threat of rain and because one of the team decided to go fishing in Venice instead, which is ironic, given that the place is flooded. So I went down another route, and drove to Lake Aquilla.

Not a bad option. As the storm was coming in, thunderclouds looming, boats were pulling into the ramp and the scene was soon deserted. Just me, the still-before-the-storm water, distant lighting flickering across the sky and the pleasure of trying to lure a Bass onto an enticing topwater spook.

Thrash! One of the fierce predators was lurking right near the bank and attacked the lure at the end of my retrieve. A good fight with a decent Widemouth, who lived to fight again another day. There were a few more close calls, with a small school of fish surging up and out of the water around the spook, but no strike. Still, even that was action, and action against the dramatic backdrop of the lake.

It's a new lake, like most in Texas, and before its creeks were dammed, an archeological survey was done on the soon to be flooded area and what became the lake shore. There were any number of Indian campsites and small settlements, some of them dating from the not so distant past. They'd be hard to recognize if you're not an expert; mostly charred stones from campfires and the occasional worked piece of stone. Some of the sites remain, if you have eyes to see.

I imagined those Indians as I fished, under the big, threatening sky. There they had been, hunting and fishing on Aquilla and Hackleberry creeks, in the vastness of the land. Well, the land's still vast and the sky's still the same, and before long it began to crash down with a vengeance.

Time to get back to the Compound, a glass of wine and the latest awful news from the Jihad. But before that, the sky turned ominously green and it started to rain in earnest, Texas-style. No fooling, and a good thing I had a truck because the streets were flooding as I drove into town.

If the rain continues, it will all be underwater. Is there a moral in this story?

If you care to draw it.

Your Buddy,

LSP