Second time out

[James Smith]

We have been fortunate to have a nice long stretch of warm weather in our January thaw this year. I posted last Sunday on my first outing of the year which was most enjoyable, but I used a spinning outfit as I wasn't sure how deep the fish would be this early in the year. This trip, I took my 4wt outfit to see if the bream were hitting yet. While I didn't catch as many fish as last trip, I did catch about 25 mixed bass and bream. Most of the bass were smaller which is to be expected when I'm using a size 12 fly, but there were a few 2+ pound bass mixed in. The bream on the other hand had several very nice fish mixed in with 4 of them around 13 inches long and nice and fat. I used a Carters SEM Sculphin fly which is my go-to early season bream and crappie fly. Typically, I tie them with black rabbit fur tail and black body and a grizzly collor, which works very well for me. Final analysis, other than the fact that the wind kicked my butt for the first half of my 2 1/2 hour outing, it was great to get back out on the water and it looks like this spring might be fantastic fishing.


Jim Smith

[Rick Z]

Sounds like great fun.

Rick

[FishnDave]

Wow, awesome!
I'd love to see pics of those 13-inchers!

[Prairieschooner]

The recent weather here sure makes one want to get out there! This weekend I'm planning to head out for the last weekend of bird season; have a new (to me) 20ga that I hope to get on some quail. After that, I suppose we'll have snow and cold for the rest of the winter and no fishin' till spring !

[James Smith]

Prairieschooner, I grew up in New England and I can still remember counting down the days until fishing season opened. My birthday is in the first week of April, so I always asked for fishing stuff for my birthday and I would spend hours sharpening hooks etc. making sure that I was ready for opening day which was near the end of April. Now, living in the South, it's fishing all year and actually catching most days you go out unless we get one of our rare snow storms where it actually snows and gets in the low teens. We're still having what I consider to be a January thaw, but I'm quite sure our time will come with temps in the teens at least a couple of more times before winter gives up, usually in mid-late March.

Jim Smith