After unpacking boxes and rediscovering the many tying books, magazines, materials, etc… that had been packed away not just from little hands but for safe keeping I can finally say I am happy to be back into the tying phase. It’s been a while since I actually sat down at the vise to tie flies and I found myself making rookie mistakes. But all that said back to the title. Things that go “glurp”:
10 year old flex seal once the bottle cap is off.
My cat after she swallowed 3-4 marabou feathers that escaped.
All of my kids and their bodily noises…OK me too for that matter.
The ketchup bottle.
Large mouth bass sucking in a “Sam’s One-Bug”!
And a perfect popper on the water as it’s chugging along.
Great, I am major league envious of that nice smallmouth. I used to chunk hardware down around Muscle Shoals area and caught a few smallmouths on my spinning rod. Getting one on my flyrod is high on my list of things to do.
If you are new to that area, check the area below Joe Wheeler Dam. Around the power line towers used to be a great spot for smallmouths. The voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me that made that a off limits for security reasons. If it’s open it’s used to be one of the best spots on the river.
Uncle J
Boats can pretty much get as close as they want without actually getting into the turbine room. LOL…They had a patrol boat for a few months and closed access to the road during the whole time period a few years back. But now it’s open. Kinda scary but people go way up farther than they should when generators are running.
We used to drift that area years ago with spinning rods and sassy shads.
I really like the bluffs above the dam near Joe Wheeler state park and the coves and bluffs on Wilson. Have grown up fishing these lakes and really love catching smallmouth on the fly. Have a creek 10 minutes from the house that is loaded with quality fish. The heat has really taken a toll on that creek this year but fish are still hanging around in the deep pools just sluggish. You should check out the boards on american river fishing for GA and AL. I must say I am dying to go catch a shoalie on the flint in GA.
We should all count our blessing for the resources we have close at hand. But the TN River holds a special place in my heart, although I have done very little fly fishing there. From 1970 until 86 I lived in Tupelo and had over to Huntsville as an area I travel, east of the Shoals area was more infrequent but I would spend a couple of month during the year in the Shoals working with Reynolds Metals. The in plant fire chief and I became close friends and would slip off and bass fish a couple of afternoons in the spring and fall. I know a small pond cutoff but connect to the river by a pipe I would love to get my float tube in. No one fishes it the fish get in and rarely find their way out. The is Fleet Harbor about Wilson Dam on the right of the photo.
A friend of mine got to go after Shoalies on the Flint with a guide and came back disappointed. It may have been too late in the summer. If I was in that area with a Gheenoe I would be caught drifting a bugger, and or a crawfish pattern along the island shore line below Wilson, they used to say there was a world record smallie in that area. I saw a couple that may have been line class records.
Bummer, that was a sweet little hole not a lot of people knew about it. If I had a float tube back in the 70-80’s I would have spent significant time there.
