So my buddy was coming to town from the other side of the state for work and he had a couple hours to kill in the middle of the day. He’s new to fly fishing so I take him to some user-friendly areas (no trees/bushes, easy currents, etc) to try and catch him his first trout on the fly. We get to the spot and I tell him the hole isn’t very big and we’ll just switch after a fish or two. Despite my attempts to refuse, he insists I go first. After I few casts I land a 10" brown. So now its his turn. I try to give him a few pointers on casting and where to cast, etc, etc. His second cast he catches his first fish on the fly, another ~10" brown. I tell him to keep casting and after another couple casts he hooks up with slightly larger brown! So today is already a great success, I’ve caught a fish, he’s caught his first couple of fish. Awesome! We keep on fishing this hole but nothing more comes from it (my buddy’s last fish caused quite a ruckus). We decide to try another spot. At this next spot, we can both cast simultaneously while within chatting distance of each other. I always catch fish in this hole, always. But today, the day when I bring my buddy to my fish guarantee spot, nothing. Not a hit, bump or strike. But then, this happened to me…
I was ecstatic! I felt a little bad for my friend not catching it but he seemed pretty excited just to see a fish of that caliber.
We tried a few more casts at that spot just to be thorough but ended up checking a few more spots before heading back to the original spot and catching a few more browns.
Between finally getting the chance to fish with my friend, him catching his first fish and me catching my best local fish yet, today was easily in my top 5 fishing experiences of all time. I’m still smiling.
Well I cropped the picture. I mean, if everybody saw where this beautiful creek chub was at, they’d all be rushing out to my favorite spot and there’d be no creek chubs left for me to play with!
I haven’t seen any yet but I don’t get out near the lakes very often in the winter. I always see them when I go anywhere near Pactola. After April/May its a guarantee I’ll be able to watch them snatch fish while I sit on the side of the creek fruitlessly waving a stick around in the air. Although if it warms up over a weekend, I’ll leave town just to get away from all the other anglers. The warm weather tends to bring everybody out and last time it got nice there was someone fishing every bit of water in Founder’s Park
I had an internal debate with myself before posting the picture on the internet since its not too hard to figure out where it was at if you’re familiar with the area. But its not like there are many spots that don’t get pressure in town. And if it gets ‘hot spotted’ I’m already in the process of finding new places to fish and relearning all the water since a lot of my old favorite holes have changed due to that October storm.
Jack and I were there in late September last year. Did not fish that exact spot, but we were close! Let’s just say that the golfers delight in taking a shot at the fishermen. Dan, your location is safe with me. I really like fishing out there. I will be back one of these days.
Dan, there’s NO WAY I would divulge that location to anyone! There are, obviously, places there (and elsewhere) that I want to keep to myself.
I know where it is … it’s yours. I’ll smile as I fish through it next time up there.
Do wish we could get together … got a couple of places (MINE!!) that need to be fished occasionally when we aren’t there, that I’ll show you. Chubs grow pretty big in them.
Oh, … find that osprey nest. Just an idea.
Nahhhhh … just wondering how the birds are doing … 