A DAY AT THE DENISON DAM
The weather people promised a nice cold front for the Thanksgiving weekend. They promised global warming, too, but they’re usually a little better with their short term predictions. The blast of frigid Canadian air arrived on Wednesday along with a stiff breeze and some rain by Thursday. I’ve studied this phenomenon quite a lot and am nearly ready to publish my thesis on the matter: Texas cold fronts regularly arrive on or just before fishing days.
But it’s something we’re learning to deal with, and for Friday the prediction was for the wind to relax and the skies to clear up. Taking all into consideration, we took a chance and organized a group session at the Denison dam for the day.
Everyone but myself would be relegated the Texas bank below the dam, due to lack of Oklahoma licenses. But I had one, and figured that and my kayak might give me an edge. I arrived ahead of the crowd and embarked into the bay below the dam with visions of being towed around by large fish, but that definitely wasn’t happening. I did get one nip on my fly, but failed to connect, and then got nothing for the rest of the day. Bob showed up next, and as he rigged I set off downstream in search of fish.
Moving down the river was quite relaxing. Pushed by a gentle breeze, light current or, alternately, my peddling, I moved slowly towards the I-75 bridge, trying fly after fly along the way with no success at all.
But the trip wasn’t without its appeal. The red ochre banks are high, effectively hiding what eyesores might lie beyond them and imparting a pleasant sense of isolation. The river shallows quite a lot and is littered with bars and snags. Some of the snags seemed popular with cormorants, largely intolerant of my approach, and buzzards collected ominously on the bank.
Carp of huge proportion were tailing in the shallows in great numbers. As the kayak drifted by they spooked en masse. Those in deeper water left great puffs of silt as they fled, but in the shallows they created quite a splashing commotion and left wakes like mini submarines just below the surface. It reminded me of those old Tarzan movies, where the great white hunters are floating down the river and the hippos become agitated. No crocs, though.
Several times the water shallowed to the point where I couldn’t peddle and I was forced to go to the paddle, often using it as a push pole. Once I even had to get out and drag the kayak over a bar to proceed. While there, I put on a woolly bugger and tried to entice a carp. I know they take flies sometimes. I’ve even caught them on jig once in a while, but carp are very wary critters and I couldn’t get any interest so I drifted onwards.
At one point I passed an eroded break in the bank that was blocked by what looked to be a small dam, complete with a gate of some sort. It was roughly 30 feet high, with great trees growing at either side on the top casting deep shadows on the red sand below. The structure was old, water stained and rusty. Honestly, what came to mind was the huge gate that kept King Kong out of the islanders’ village. Imagination runs wild when the fish aren’t biting.
It took forever to get from the Denison dam to the interstate bridge. What appeared to be a short distance was pure illusion. The dam and bridge are so big that they look close to one another but the distance is really about two miles. Eventually I passed through a shute where water funneled between bank and bar, and had increased current, and then out into deeper water just up from the bridge. It looked promising, but produced no fish.
By now the sun was lower and shadows were getting longer. I figured it’d be unwise to tarry down here so I began the trip back to the dam. The upstream journey was far less relaxing. My wife has been urging for quite some time that I get some exercise and she’d have applauded my predicament, now.
The kayak is a Hobie Outback, with pedals that move fins under the boat. I was able to make good headway in the deeper water, but every time it shallowed I was forced to stow the peddles and break out that paddle. Paddling against both current and breeze was invigorating but I got back to the dam about half an hour before the sun dipped behind it.
The rest of the gang had long since arrived and were actively throwing flies in the riffles. Still, no fish had yet made an appearance other than those ubiquitous carp.. It was a great day for practicing one’s casting.
When the sun dropped behind the dam the temperature began to plummet. Sitting in the boat, at anchor below the riffles I got one half hearted jerk on the line, but nothing else. Wet fingers and toes began to numb with cold and the breeze found its way down the back of my neck making the kayak less appealing, so I beached it as daylight transitioned into the murkiness of deep dusk.
By now we were beginning to see some activity. There were rings showing up on the surface in the bay. We began hearing splashes that we weren’t certain any more were caused by carp. Casting got more serious, but nothing happened.
I moved up to a riffle on the Oklahoma side near where the kayak lay resting and began fishing there, the activity forcing blood back into my toes. Gradually, as darkness fell, the others succumbed to both lack of fish and increased cold and climbed back to the parking lot on the Texas side.
Ron’s Rattling Rabbit graced my tippet. The splash it made on the surface when it landed was visible only vaguely in the darkness, against the glare of distant parking lot lights on the water, but I could at least see where I was casting.
After a short while there was a tug, and a huge splash, but I didn’t connect with anything. I figured my fly had briefly snagged a passing carp. But 5 minutes later another tug came followed by the instant loss of all of my fly line and much of my backing. I could not turn this fish.
Sound carries well there in the night and my cries of “fish on!” brought forth a great flurry of well thought out insults from the parking lot across the river. Soon headlights came on and after a couple of moments of erratic movement they headed for the road across the dam.
It was nearly fifteen minutes before I recovered enough backing to see my fly line again, and by then my compadres had arrived with flashlights to watch the battle. Much speculation took place as to what might be on the line. Dave had once had a similar adventure with a huge paddlefish, and there were giant catfish in the river. I thought maybe I’d snagged a big carp.
A little while later the flashlight beams found the fish near the surface in his final stage of struggle, illuminating a rather large striped bass. When I finally beached him Bob had the camera ready and Dave had his scale. The fish weighed 14 pounds, measured 30 inches and will feed my wife for months.
When I cleaned the fish I found 3 eight inch shad in his stomach, each of which dwarfed the fly I’d been using. It gave me pause to wonder if perhaps I ought to be using a larger fly.
At any rate, I can say with relative certainty that it was an enjoyable day and well worth the trouble. Those poor souls who didn’t catch fish did generally improve their casting skills, and the size of that fish will act as great incentive to keep at it.
Probably, we’ll all be back there soon.
