For the sake of finding a home, fly fishing = "trad" fishing. So this thread is going in the trad section.
A funny thing happend a little over a week or so ago, Chunky and I decided to take up fly fishing. We both researched what rod we should get. We both checked out a few places. We both ended up going to Bass Pro in Katy to pick up a rod/reel. We both had no reel clue of what exactly we were doing. We just knew that we wanted to fish with stick and string. That is, just one stick and one string.
After purchasing our setups, we went home and practiced casting in our yards and then went fishing in the closest pond we had nearby and we both ended up catching our first fish. Mine on a wooly bugger and his on a popper.
Now you might ask "what's so funny about that?" Well, while it seems like we planned to do this together, we had absolutely no clue the other was going through the same paces at the exact same time. So imagine our surprise when I post up a question for the Green Screen and find out the other is doing the exact same thing... learning to fly fish.
So last night, Chunky and I decide to meet up at a small pond up in the Woodlands to do some fishing. The Woodlands has a lot of community ponds and most of them, unlike the ones near my house are very well managed. I chose Alden Woods Park. It was closer to Chunky and from google maps, I could tell it would be a good little body of water to do some practice.
Chunky had his first bass under his belt, and I had a grand total of 3 fish caught out of probably 7 or 8 trips to small lakes/ponds under my belt. I'm telling you, we were the reel deal. I'm pretty sure the outdoor channel would have offered us a contract for fly fishing show right there on the spot. Too bad folks like that don't live in the Woodlands... ore maybe they do.
We hit that little pond pretty hard. Unfortunately, the pond hit back. There were quite a few turtles that would prove to be somewhat annoying. Since I was trying out strike indicators for the first time; I had to deal with these curious buggers coming up to the indicator and pushing it around. My setup was a 5wt with a bead head nymph suspended by a sticky foam indicator about 1.5 ft off the top. I was targeting blue gills and other smaller fish. Chunky was fishing an 8wt with a popper, targeting the bass.
I did end up catching 2 fish. A small Largemouth (my first LM on a fly) that was pure luck and a sizeable gill that was all skill I hooked that gill on the slightest twitch of the indicator. It was no more than a small ripple. The bass however was one of those experiences that everybody has had if you fish long enough. You know, the one where you have a bad cast and then you start messing with your rod or reel trying to straight everything out. You then tug on your line to start the processe over and somehow, while you looked like Bill Dance fumbling around in an blooper reel, you managed to set the hook on a fish and didn't even know it.
Chunky had a great strike on his popper towards the end of the evening. But it was one of those other moments we all experience. The one where you are talking to a buddy or some passer by and the fish strikes hard and you missed it because you weren't paying attention. Kinda like when you are sitting in a blind texting your buddy over on the other side of the lease asking if he is seeing any deer because there aint squat moving over on your side. Then you look up and there is a buck looking at you like "whatcha doing? checking pintrest?"
A funny thing happend a little over a week or so ago, Chunky and I decided to take up fly fishing. We both researched what rod we should get. We both checked out a few places. We both ended up going to Bass Pro in Katy to pick up a rod/reel. We both had no reel clue of what exactly we were doing. We just knew that we wanted to fish with stick and string. That is, just one stick and one string.
After purchasing our setups, we went home and practiced casting in our yards and then went fishing in the closest pond we had nearby and we both ended up catching our first fish. Mine on a wooly bugger and his on a popper.
Now you might ask "what's so funny about that?" Well, while it seems like we planned to do this together, we had absolutely no clue the other was going through the same paces at the exact same time. So imagine our surprise when I post up a question for the Green Screen and find out the other is doing the exact same thing... learning to fly fish.
So last night, Chunky and I decide to meet up at a small pond up in the Woodlands to do some fishing. The Woodlands has a lot of community ponds and most of them, unlike the ones near my house are very well managed. I chose Alden Woods Park. It was closer to Chunky and from google maps, I could tell it would be a good little body of water to do some practice.
Chunky had his first bass under his belt, and I had a grand total of 3 fish caught out of probably 7 or 8 trips to small lakes/ponds under my belt. I'm telling you, we were the reel deal. I'm pretty sure the outdoor channel would have offered us a contract for fly fishing show right there on the spot. Too bad folks like that don't live in the Woodlands... ore maybe they do.
We hit that little pond pretty hard. Unfortunately, the pond hit back. There were quite a few turtles that would prove to be somewhat annoying. Since I was trying out strike indicators for the first time; I had to deal with these curious buggers coming up to the indicator and pushing it around. My setup was a 5wt with a bead head nymph suspended by a sticky foam indicator about 1.5 ft off the top. I was targeting blue gills and other smaller fish. Chunky was fishing an 8wt with a popper, targeting the bass.
I did end up catching 2 fish. A small Largemouth (my first LM on a fly) that was pure luck and a sizeable gill that was all skill I hooked that gill on the slightest twitch of the indicator. It was no more than a small ripple. The bass however was one of those experiences that everybody has had if you fish long enough. You know, the one where you have a bad cast and then you start messing with your rod or reel trying to straight everything out. You then tug on your line to start the processe over and somehow, while you looked like Bill Dance fumbling around in an blooper reel, you managed to set the hook on a fish and didn't even know it.
Chunky had a great strike on his popper towards the end of the evening. But it was one of those other moments we all experience. The one where you are talking to a buddy or some passer by and the fish strikes hard and you missed it because you weren't paying attention. Kinda like when you are sitting in a blind texting your buddy over on the other side of the lease asking if he is seeing any deer because there aint squat moving over on your side. Then you look up and there is a buck looking at you like "whatcha doing? checking pintrest?"
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