Goose Creek Fishing

We went fishing today at Kephart Bridge Landing park (also known as Goose Creek). The friendly folks at Orvis Tysons Corner told me about this place a couple of weeks ago - we scouted it out yesterday and came back this morning around 1000. We all had a blast! The kids caught some of these catfish (blues???) with the dip net. The sunfish were more than happy to hit the flies we chucked at them, and La even had a good time sight fishing (she exclaimed "I'm coming back!" and even took her own fish off the hook). If you have been intimidated by flyfishing, go to www.tenkarabum.com and pick up a starter kit from Chris - tenkara style fishing has become my preferred method of angling here on the lakes and waterways of Northern Virginia - you will not regret opening up a new way of fishing that oh by the way helps you immensely with then casting conventional fly fishing gear. Since the tenkara rods I brought were all spoken for (we all had lines in the water - unbelievable!!!) I strung up my Helios 5wt - I had sunfish up the wazoo, but notably caught one large mouth and two small mouth bass - but more on that in the next post. Marlon got his first crappie to hand!!! What a wonderful Sunday!

Sunday Funnies, Part 1

Here is my latest effort in www.tenkarabum.com 's blue fly contest. This is a single strand of the contest blue yarn epoxied on to a tiny tanago hook. I went out to the lake 30 minutes before La and the kids came out to see what this fly could do. A lot more work to get any of the fish to notice it - in fact the line holder for the hook line (the hooks come snelled so I don't have to get frustrated tying them on) attracted more fish than the fly. I brought to hand this young LMB (he inhaled the fly), a young BG and I had another LMB in this size class come off before I got a hand on it. This was the most challenging flyfishing session yet (lots of fish, not many takers), but that certainly made it more fun!

Pau Hana Fishing (just not in Hawaii)

I get my seiryu/tenkara/keiryu rods and supplies from www.tenkarabum.com - and Chris S (proprietor) started a "Blue Fly" contest (check out his website for details). Anyways, I finally tied up a blue fly and used it yesterday. I caught 12 bluegills on the single "killer bug" with a red tail. I was using a Nissin Fine Mode Zoom rod - 14'6" with a number 3 level line. It was real windy too so the casting with this soft rod was challenging - but the action when a pugnacious BG took the fly was AWESOME!!! Not bonefish on 8wt A-W-E-S-O-M-E (epic awesome), but still a great time. Noe caught one on her own and Marlon came away with a 6 count. The crappie and LMBs were no where to be seen. Not sure if it was the wind or the rain we just had - we'll see later on today...

Somerset NJ Flyfishing Show

I made the drive up to Northern Jersey to catch the Flyfishing Show. I got to check out Mystic Rods, Hatch Reels, the Orvis H2, all kinds of tying material and some more or less famous dudes. Lefty was demonstrating casting. Enrico was tying flies. And most of the East Coast fly tiers were showing off what makes their craft unique. I also got to check out the new Shimano Tenkara rod that Chris Stewart at www.tenkarabum.com recently wrote about on his blog - OMG that thing is SWEET!!! Zooms from 340 to 380 cm (I think) and the balance was perfection. I needed to buy Marlon's birthday present, so I couldn't bring the Shimano home - maybe for our anniversary... So the opportunity to check out and compare the rods and reels, finding some hard to find materials and getting ideas for just about everything in fly fishing (where to go, what flies to tie, gear to be cooler - or at least make me think I'm cooler), made the drive worth it.