Went striper fishing last week. Went out on Texoma with Scott Bridgess
who had me fishing a nine weight rod loaded with LC-13 and Amnesia
running line. Man, that stuff garbles up into goopy loops - fast! I
had a stripping bucket on the deck beside me but most of the time I
was missing it. So I had Amnesia all over the deck and was stepping
on it quite a bit. Nothing quite like winding up and hurling a few
hundred grains of lead line only to have it come to an ungraceful
stop due to my big old foot.
But I have to tell you, casting that LC-13 was quite a spiritual
experience. I have spent so much time working on grace, delicacy
and presentation in my casting only to wind up in the middle of
Texoma winding up and hurling like a baseball pitcher. More
truthfully it's combo of pitcher and batter all at once. Roll
cast that lead line to the top, grab the back loop on the shooting
head, toss it behind me, let a little line shoot to get the back
loop outside the tiptop and then...KeeeeYahhhhh!!!!..... fire it
out there.
There is a sort of grace I suppose, not unlike the grace of the
hammer toss. The other exciting part is where is that 1/0 Clouser
with lead eyes and SHARP hook point going to track to? All the
more motivation to cast well. There were a few memorable occasions
where that Clouser passed right by my head like an annoying kid
in a Civic with a fat tailpipe. Guaranteed to make you consider
good casts.
I grew to love casting that stuff. Stripers hooked themselves
up smashing that Clouser. What a fight! And not minuscule fish
either. One high point was hooking up a fat striper right
there in the harbor of Highport Marina on a fly that I had
whipped up in a hurry the night before.
Some orange streamer feathers, some olive sheep's hair and bead
chain eyes. He smacked it good and I fought him to the boat right
there amongst the slips and the million dollar boats.
At the end of the day we sat in Scott's slip while he cleaned
fish. The local heron population came down to argue over scraps,
the sun set, the stars came out in the moonless evening sky. And
I drove back to McKinney to sleep the sleep of the happy angler. ~ RR
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