Friday Morning Subfreezing Fishing

While a lot of people were paying homage to their capitalistic gods, I was conducting a survey with the fish at 4 Mile Run. There was more water in the run than last time - ankle deep in areas that were dry last time. I used the Nissin Fine Mode Nagare 2-way Zoom rod, mostly in 390 mode. I was casting using a TUSA Furled line with a short section of 7X tippet. I used a pink squirmy wormie until it magically came off mid cast (frozen fingers tie crappy knots), then I used a bead head killer bug for the rest of the trip. I ended up catching 7 bluegill, 2 pumpkinseeds and 3 green sunfish. With the setup I had, even the small guy's pulling felt like a pissed off dobie yanking at backyard chain. Scale down your tackle to increase your fun!!! Oh - did I mention it was 25 degrees out???? UPDATE: I forgot to mention I caught a glimpse of the legendary white tilapia!!! I'm going back with my 5wt to catch that fish...

Quotes from La

Marlon and Noe took their yellow belt tests today for Tae Kwon Do and after they 'kicked butt', we had sushi for lunch to celebrate. Then after that, we headed to Riverbend Regional Park to go hiking and fishing. We all caught some fish, but La seemed to have the most fun. Without recanting the whole afternoon, a better way to relay all the fun is to take excerpts from La. (1) BAM! I CAUGHT THE FIRST BASS (2) DON'T BE JEALOUS (3) JUST BECAUSE I CAUGHT MORE FISH THAN YOU DID DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE ANY LESS OF A PERSON (4) I LOVE FISHING WHEN I'M CATCHING FISH (5) I NEED A FISHING SHIRT (6) HOOOO! LOOK AT THIS - I CAUGHT ANOTHER FISH - THAT'S FOUR! HOW MANY HAVE YOU CAUGHT? WHOOOOOO! That's my La ;)

Late Afternoon Catching

I asked the kiddoroosters if they wanted to go fishing this afternoon and they said 'no daddy - we want to play with Legos and stay clean'. So with that, I walked down to the pond/lake and cast two flies. The first was a Killer Bug in blue yarn (from www.tenkarabum.com) and the second was another tiny blue yarn spec (blue yarn superglued on to a minuscule tanago hook). I caught a few before the Sun went down - I actually caught a few more but setting the hook caused a few of those other fish I hooked to get airborne. Once in the air, the unweighting also served to unhook those little fish and with a small splash - off they swam. Glassy evening out on the lake(pond) and you could not pay for better weather than what we got today!

Carping Saturday

I drove down the the C&O Canal this morning to spend a couple of hours chasing the carp that live there. I used the Daiwa 43MF Kiyose rod and brought this 17" (nearly - hey it isn't a fish story if you don't stretch the "tape" a little) to hand. A few minutes after I let it go, I hooked into a much bigger carp - during the fight it used a quick change of direction against me to break the lilian off the tip of my rod - that was it for carping today. Waiting for the takes, getting to see the carp inhale the fly and setting the hook are in the group of events where time stands still - like surfing a barrel, the apex of a big air kite jump or jumping off a high rock face into a pool of water below - definitely adrenaline producing! With my heavyweight rod out of commission (for now) I started walking back and I took out the Nissin Fine Mode Seiryu rod I have and cast a blue popper - I got some takes from the sunfish lining the banks of the canal - they don't start the adrenaline pumps the same way big carp do, but they are enjoyable nonetheless. Fishing for carp may not seem glamorous or a noble pursuit - but it is a BLAST!!!

Hooked SUP Fishing near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

Saturday morning we took the armada to one of the beaches on the Southern end of the Chesapeake Bay. The wind was from the South-South West so it was pretty flat for us. La went for a long paddle and I anchored to keep an eye on the kids (who were trolling for plankton with some nets we made) and to cast a line further out and still use lighter tackle. I caught a few croaker while out on the Hooked SUP. I tried laying a crab line out with chicken neck on it and when checking on it, I saw the target I was hoping for - baby pompano. After catching the croaker and transferring them to Marlon on the Grom paddleboard to take back to the beach to our specimen bucket, I paddled back to the beach to try my hand at catching the pomps on a tenkara rod. After you take a few minutes to adjust, you begin to notice all kinds of small fish hovering in the shallows (to not get eaten I presume). Between Marlon throwing the cast net and me using the tenkara rod with #16 hook, we brought a baby bluefish that had a semi-circular chunk missing out of it's back (almost something's lunch), some anchovy type fish and several small pomps ranging from very small to almost edible size. I didn't end up paddling out too far since I was hanging out with the kids, but I can see how paddling out to deeper water, anchoring and throwing out a rig with a bigger hook could lead to a much harder tug-o-war match with a piscine competitor. We had a blast and all this made me miss living in Virginia Beach even more than I already did.

Secret Fish Catching Weapons

We're going paddling/surfing/fishing this weekend!!! I've got a score to settle with some freshwater piscine adversaries and these Gamakatsu size 10 SL45 hooks covered in blue yarn are going to be "Killer Blueberries". The orange yarn size 14 eggs are stripped down sand crabs - advertising what I think the small fish would want - "just the eggs please - no shells". We'll see if this works as I'm not sure the baby pompano are running around the lower Chesapeake yet. And the fall back for the common bottom feeder - a small orange and black clouser minnow. I am going to bring spinning gear, lures and bait as well as the fly gear (Daiwa Kiyose 43MF, Orvis Helios 8 wt and the Nissin Fine Mode). Weather is looking good too - can't wait!!!

Hooked SUP Fishing at Lake Audubon

Damn that MTI inflatable PFD makes me look like I have a gut!!! But they are oh so much cooler to wear in the summer. Anyways - I brought the Hooked SUP out and rigged a seat/cooler/snack bin/storage container to it with bungees. The Igloo cooler was way lighter than the Yeti. I know the Igloo will not hold ice as long, but for an afternoon paddle, it works just fine and the weight savings is worth the difference. I did land two small large mouth bass and three decent sized bluegill. The bluegill were sucking down insects that were hanging out on the water's surface - I just cast my fly out near where the ripples were and SMACK - bent rod and big smiles. The last one I caught had some weird growth on it - it's hard to see on the pictures, but it looked like some kind of amphipod. The Scotty tri-rod holder was awesome! And with the RAM Mounting Adaptors, I could use the RAM rod holders I already have - and they worked great both for the flyrod and the tenkara. I don't anticipate any issues with the spinning rods. And trolling lures while getting exercise on larger bodies of water should be a blast! So much so that the MTI PFD might not make me look fat anymore. Having a decent distance to paddle straight, I got to see how the board tracked. For full disclosure, I have on a much smaller fin than the board ships with (almost half the area less that Alex Aguera's stock fin) - primarily to avoid damaging the glass fin. The board still paddles straight! You can feel the extra drag caused by the extra width, but that is a very small price to pay for the incredible stability the width gives. I can walk all over the board without worrying what the board is going to do in response to the weight shift. This may not be a factor for most of you out there, but if you want to manage rods, lines, nets, etc to catch aquatic creatures, then you need the width above 30". We still need to take a picture of the truck loaded up for these local SUP outings - nothing too dramatic, but carefully considered placement of everything to make for a fun day on the water.

Father's Day 2013 - Not Skunked!!!

These aren't easy to see, but it's all I got as far as records of today's catch. I tied up replacements for the popper and sabiki flies I lost yesterday and brought a few more to boot. I brought the Uli FAQ back out this morning to try and redeem myself. I did intend to bring a bucket to keep anything that I would want to gyotaku alive until I was ready to go home, but I forgot it in my excitement to go fishing. I used a pink squirmy wormy fly on a size 14 hook and nailed several bluegill and a couple of bass before that fly got sent to fly heaven (I'm not sure where that is, but that's where my fly is). I paddled around after I finished fishing to scope out more hot spots. I saw some really good sized bass swimming around the part of the lake I normally stare at as I fish from the dock. The Nissin Fine Mode Japanese style flyfishing rod I have performed like a champ! Awesome morning of fishing!!!