|
I headed out the lake over my lunch
hour on Tuesday. The wind was blowing,
but I had time to go. Besides that I
wanted to see of any crappie were
still in.
When I got out to the lake there were
folks on both jetties. With the wind
blowing as hard as it was, I did not
want to be around other folks. I
decided to try the one flat and see
if there might be any gills there.
Also, this would allow me to cast
directly into the wind. The waves were
big enough that the tops were showing
a few whitecaps. This is not the best
casting conditions for me, but what the
heck. Besides that, the only way to
learn to cast into a high wind is to do it.
I tied on a black fly to start with. Hook
size 8, black marabou tail, black chenille
body with three black rubber hackle legs
tied across on the front 1/3 of the shank,
sticking out about 1 inch on each side. No
bead head on this one. This is becoming one
of my favorite flies for gills.
I cast it out and let the fly drop for a while.
With no bead head this does not drop fast. The
fly has been in the water about 5 seconds when
I saw the line moving to the side. I was into
a nice gill. I returned her to the lake and cast
out again. I was letting the waves move the fly
in. I did not put any more action on the fly. It
does have a tendency to drop flat in the water.
This time the fly had moved about 10 feet
when the end of the fly line went down in
the water. I thought weed and set the hook
to take it off the weed. The gill on the
end of the line did not like the feel of
the hook. This fish headed for the bottom
and stayed broadside to me the whole time. I
finally got this gill in and was amazed at
the size of this one. He measured 11.5 inches
long and was very thick. There are not many
gills this size in the lake. He is still
swimming there.
My next cast landed out about 10 feet from
shore with loops of line all over the place.
You really have to practice a lot to get this
move down pat. I even had a few loops of line
around the end of the fly rod. I got those
off first and started to retrieve the line
to make another cast. The problem was that
the end of the line was not where it had been
to start with. When the line tightened and the
hook point went in the bass let me know that it
was not liking this. This fish came out of the
water four times trying to get rid of the hook.
I got her in and measured her out of curiosity,
18 inches. I put her back in the water to fight
another day.
By this time I had attracted the attention of
a few folks. When you are catching fish and they
are not that seems to focus attention. One guy
came from the far jetty and parked his car in
front of my pickup. He came down to where I was
at and told me to move, this was his spot now.
I did not feel like moving so I told him that
when I left he could have the spot.
It was fortunate that a game warden came by at
that time. I did not recognize him, but I did
recognize the uniform. He asked to see our fishing
licence. First time I have been checked in a long
time. He then asked if there was a problem. I
told him that this person (I wanted to say jerk or
idiot) had decided that I needed to move just
because he had come to this area. The other
guy then told the game warden that he had the
right to fish any place that he wanted to. The
warden surprised me when he said that was
not quite true. He did not have the right
to tell other folks to leave places where
they were fishing.
The not so bright guy then told the game warden
to preform a sexual act with himself. The game
warden cuffed him and took him to the local jail.
The warden came back and told me that not much
would happen to the guy, but he would be out of
the way for a while. I thanked him for stopping
and saying what he did.
He asked if he could try the fly rod as he had
never caught a fish on one. You can bet that
this was going to happen. I cast it out and
handed it to him. Teaching someone to cast
into a high wind is not a good way to start.
Let him catch a fish and then he will be hooked.
He managed to catch three gills before I had
to head back from lunch. He said that he had
a ball and was going to get a fly rod. I
referred him to FAOL to get information on
all aspects of fly fishing.
It was fun to see him catch a few fish,
especially after he got rid of a
potential problem.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick ziegeria@grm.net
|
