Bittersweet

I was hoping that today I could start my smallmouth expedition on Blue River but the fact is I simply chose a bad day. To begin with my time today was short and secondly the wind was still quite brutal. Now the wind today was nothing compared to yesterday with reported gusts of seventy miles-per-hour across the prairie ocean. But still, the wind was enough to make one uncomfortable and casting difficult.

Knowing all these facts full well I still decided to go and give it a shot because today would be my only chance this week of searching for the community of bass in Blue.

Actually it could have been a very nice day today with the sun shining brightly. The Dogwoods and Redbuds were in full blossom so I guess I can't bitch too much.



I entered the river with smallmouth on my mind and even had the proper fly tied on to find them and in this case it was a white streamer tied with cactus chenille. I must have made fifty casts or so without even so much of a bite and the long story short is I did not find a single smallmouth or any other species of bass today. I did see one nice bass circling my legs while standing in Glory Hole. For the most part the bass seemed uninterested and mainly annoyed at my presence. I must have invaded his lie and he wanted me gone. So...I moved downstream.


Downstream I made a single cast and something attacked it. I was sure I had connected with a nice bass and then the fish showed itself from a distance and I was still sure it was a nice bass. But then I noticed how unremarkable the fight was for a fish this size hooked downstream and being fought against the current. The fish seemed letarghic in the fight and this led me to believe it was a Rainbow that had started to feel the effects of the warming water. The water was indeed warm today and I know this because I fell in.

Indeed it was bow and it was a nice one. I brought the fish to hand and immediately found myself torn as to what to do with the fish. I knew very well it was much too late in the season to let the fish go. I also knew that a Rainbow this size simply doesn't have the flavor as a smaller bow, in my opinion, and I don't care to partake in them.

I harvested this bow and since she's too big for the dinner table and honestly not big enough for the wall I figure she's still on her way to Texas and Rusty Ponder's taxidermy shop. Rusty will do a good job with her.

I didn't want this bow, and giving her life for my enjoyment, to go unnoticed. I'll spend two-hundred dollars to have her mounted and during my remaining days I'll showcase her and hope that her life will be a testimony to the rewards of angling. After I'm gone perhaps my children or grandchildren can take charge of this bow and they too can showcase the rewards that angling can bring.

I hope this bow today will be the last I catch this season.

It was a bittersweet moment.

In Search Of The Smallmouth - Part 1

This April, May, and June I fully intend to start an extensive and hopefully successful search for the smallmouth that reside in Blue River. I'd planned on beginning this weekend but the wind Gods decided otherwise blowing their steely breath at thrity to forty miles per hour. So, I stayed home and chose part of my arsenal that I will use in my smallmouth expeditions.



Ralph James gave me this fly just this week while we were attending the Wildlife Department's annual get-together at Blue River. Ralph hasn't given it a name as far as I know so for the time being I'm going to call it the Green Sunfish Fry because that is what it reminds me of. Although my photograph doesn't do it justice this is a nicely tied fly and to me it looks like it's going to produce many moments of fishing excitement.



For the larger smallmouth I have high hopes for this fly I call the Bass Buster. It's a beauty of a fly and I can see someone using this fly for stripers in Lake Texoma but I'll be fishing it at Blue.



Ahh the Clouser, one of the world's most famous flies and one that has produced for me in the past. Most certainly I'll be tying this on each outing.



It only makes sense to have a pattern designed after the smallmouth's favorite delicacy which in Blue is the crawdad or crayfish as some would say. This is a heavy metal fly tied so the hook point is up while drifting through the current. It's proved to be a killer fly in the past. This fly is tied mainly with Pheasant Tail fibers along with a little antron for dubbing and gold ribbing. Very simple tie it is.



Poppers are my favorite tool to use in my search for smallmouth and that probably goes back to the days when I was a kid. As a kid I was absolutely fascinated with poppers and collected them like other kids collected baseball cards. To this day I still hold my childhood fancy for the popper.

I plan on starting my smallmouth expedition at the extreme end of Area 1 and work my way upstream hopefully to the end of the Catch and Release area. I'll be covering six and a half miles of river as far as the crow flies. However, if I fish each braid, fork, run, pool, and pocket I most likely will cover twice as many miles.

I hope to start my search this coming weekend...if the weather permits.

The Mini-Museum Grows

Over the years the spare bedroom in my prairie home has become a mini-museum dedicated to the fly-fishing world. This past week another friend of mine named Melissa brought me yet another addition to my museum. Her gift came in the form of a tin of Cortland 333 fly-line cleaner. I sent out some feelers to see if other fly-fishers could help me date this piece and I did find out that Cortland started selling their 333 fly-line in 1953. Anyhow I'm posting the following picture in hopes that others can add more input in answering the question on my mind about this latest museum piece.



In my prairie home museum I have more than I know what to do with. On the wall is a dollar bill in a zip-loc bag. It was a dollar bill I found floating in Rock Creek while fly-fishing for smallmouth. Over at the fly-tying tool bench there is a set of Rainbow trout coasters. Leaning up against the north wall is an Eagle Claw Trailmaster ZLII 600 Travel Pack Rod that has never been out of it's case. Over on the old television that is of no use these days are sets of flies given to me by friends such as Michael Mercurio, Ralph James, Chris Adams, and Chuck Kaminski.

I guess it would be safe to say that someone that didn't fly-fish would say that my museum is just a "junk" room. But to me...it's priceless treasure.

Maybe someday I can have a building built to display all my treasure for the rest of the world to enjoy.

Barry

One Fine Day...Almost

Near my prairie home is a small store and each morning I travel there to get a morning cup of hot chocolate. Most mornings there is a certain lady working there and over the many cups of hot chocolate she and I developed a daily conversation and friendship. It was through the conversations that I learned that Karen loves to fish and the more hot chocolate I drank the more I learned and eventually there was one fact that came to bear. You see...Karen has never trout fished and never heard of Blue River.

Well now, no respected Blue River fan or fly-fisher for that fact could let this little problem go unresolved so Karen and I made a date to explore Lady Blue and today we did just that.



Now, I knew going into this that Karen didn't fly-fish and that was okay with me because in my master-plan I would have her fly-fishing before our day was through and it would be one fine day. However, nature had other plans and my plans for one fine day included the word almost.

Karen and I thought we were getting a really early start arriving at the parking lot of the south wilderness about ten minutes after seven. But when we roll in and hitched the ponies we found four other adventurers had beat us there.

Fishing for the first hour was slow for us and only produced one nice fat Kentucky bass. We realized we were fishing behind the other anglers because we could see them making their way upstream from pool to pool.

At our third pool I put Karen on a certain stretch of water but within two minutes she was looking upstream. She asked me if she could go upstream and I told her fine as long as she was careful. A minute after Karen left I landed the nicest bow I've battled so far this season - a beautifully colored two and half pound warrior. It was a terrific fight.

The skies had darkened and become threatening and that's when the thunder started to roll. Shortly thereafter the lightning started to flash and streak so I went to find Karen. I found her a short way upstream and she was excited telling me "there here!" "Who's here?", I asked. Karen promptly told me she had found a honey hole just tossing a small trout back and losing a sixteen incher at the bank. I took position behind Karen to watch her fish and on her next cast I got to see a bow attack her offering with extreme malicious intent. Then that bow came out of the water and did her version of River Dance. It was a beautiful sight to watch. And, let me say this about Karen...she knows how to fight a fish. Karen down and dirtied that bow into submission.

It was about that time the lightning got worse and I shared with Karen my concerns but she wanted to make just a few more casts. Turns out we would wait about fifteen minutes too long and that was just enough time for the rains to arrive.

We were two miles upstream and had to walk back in a drenching rain.


We finally made it to the prairie schooner and decided to try and wait the rain out while enjoying a beer with one another but the rain couldn't make up it's mind. Finally, we decided to go to Scotty's and order a burger to go and have lunch on Blue. After lunch there was a lull in the rain so we tried to fish Glory Hole but five minutes into it the rain came again and it was heavier.

Needless to say I didn't get an opportunity to make Karen a fly-fisher today. But she enjoyed her outing so much, as I did, we're going a-fishin' again and when we do, fly-fishing class will be in session.

Magnificent!

I figured my morning of fishing at Blue today would be my typical morning but at the end of day it proved to be anything but typical.

I hit the trail leaving my prairie home about the break of day. On the trail down I was privileged to see an abundance of wildlife busy being wild. I saw rabbits scurrying across the road and coyotes no doubt giving chase, red tail hawks perched on high lines reconnoitering the landscape, and a rather large family of deer leaping a fence line one after another with the precision, beauty, and grace of a synchronized swim team. It was a good trail drive down this morning.

Arriving at Scotty's, I took in the morning announcing itself in full bright color through the huge orange orb in the sky.


I decided to fish the south wilderness area today better known as the Landrum Wilderness Area. My first stop was Coyote Pass Falls and here I plopped an olive wooly bugger into a pocket and soon a bow would take my offering. It was at this moment my amazing fishing day would begin.


The next ten bows that I captured all would go two pounds or better and I captured them all from the same pocket of water. Never, in my almost thirty years of fishing have I ever had trout to fight like these chaps. They were magnificent!

I put all the fish back and it wasn't long until two bait casting anglers came to the pool I was fishing and these boys looked hungry so I gave them the water. They quickly took four nice bows from the pocket. I moved upstream to the Cove.


At the cove I took two bows in rather fast fashion and hooked one I never turned but then the action just died. It wasn't long until I saw four other casters of fur and feather and they also were getting into fish here and there. Here and there was where the bows were...they were positioned, lying in wait in the countless pockets of the south wilderness.

David with the wildlife department drove up performing part of his daily duties so I quit fishing to chat with him. David has been with the department a long time and is a fixture at Blue River.

I continued on after talking with David and each placed I fished thereafter I would connect with a quality two pound bow. Of all the fish I caught today only four would measure less than fifteen inches. It was an amazing thing. These bows were fat, had shoulders and were beautifully colored plus battle worthy.


About mid-morning I quit fishing for bows and started searching for bass to see if the bass activity is coming on. It is...to a degree. I captured three small spotted bass but no smallies. I think perhaps in three weeks or so we should see some good bass action, particularly if this warm weather continues.

I ventured out into the Scatters to the big falls in search of the bass and the flow of water over Big Falls was still pretty good. But, there are a lot of braids and forks that have no flow at all right now. We really need some rain.


On my way out I noticed that Desperado Springs is bone dry and probably has been for sometime and this fact is quite disheartening. Desperado Springs is one of the more prolific springs on Blue River.


I carried a trash bag today as part of my "spring cleaning" effort on Blue. I kind of like picking up trash for some reason. Really wish I didn't have to pick up trash, but figure it's always going to be there. Studying trash can tell you a lot about humankind. Here I can see there has been some spin fishermen, bait casters, harvesters of fish, someone that needed an energy boost, someone that snuck a beer into the walk-in and someone that was just simply thirsty. I recently said I don't discriminate against any fishing discipline and I don't, but I can certainly chastise all disciplines for trashing the river. If your an angler that trashes the river then I'd hate to see your home.

If I were to measure the quality of a fishing day by the quality of trout caught, their size and fight, then today's fishing was my best day ever fishing for the bows of Blue. If I'd had a stringer and strung six bows...then that stringer would've weighed twelve pounds...at least. It was remarkable.

Right now, the south wilderness is producing larger trout than the catch & release area.

Another Derby Said And Done

The Blue River Trout Derby is something Carol and I always look forward to and not just for the fishing but for the friendships we take part in while at the derby itself. Last trout derby in November we bummed off of Chris Adams in his fifth-wheel camper but this year we decided to bum off of Jonathan Boeck. Jonathan brought his high wall pop-up and it was a sweetie of a camping unit. He's a fantastic host and we had a high time of it tying flies, comparing gear, and sitting around the campfire. Thanks to the lifting of the burn ban we did have a campfire but we made sure it wasn't one of those big ass campfires that Ralph James is so well known for.

Jonathan is a long time member of the Blue River Fly Fishers and since moving to nearby Ada he is slowly getting back into his fly-fishing life.

Carol decided she was going to take the bank this time out and since she was I knew I wasn't going to get far from her. Jonathan and I decided to fish the close-by waters of Glory Hole. Saturday morning came and both Jonathan and myself thought we were getting an early start by leaving camp at 7 a.m. However, when we got to Glory Hole it was already covered by anglers. We went slightly upstream and fished the plunge pool and the action started right away. Jonathan kept getting strike after strike but couldn't get a hook-set. Jonathan probably had a little rust from not getting to fly-fish much over the last couple of year. By 7:30 I had five fish to hand but slipped three of them back in thinking I would catch bigger fish later in the day. Boy...was I wrong! After 7:30 Jonathan and yours truly would not get another strike. The fishing in Area 1 was simply tough. Even some of the best trout anglers like Roger and Shawn Flynn were having off days. Roger and Shawn have dominated the trout derby for the last several years but this derby was going to be different.

Meanwhile...that crafty craftsman aka The Master Chris Adams was carrying out his well-laid strategy. Chris decided to pass up the lunker derby trout and travel to the south wilderness. Chris in his thinking reasoned if he could catch six of the Missouri trout that are one pound or better he would be in the running. Chris was right. Come Saturday afternoon Chris weighed in five trout for heavy stringer and one for heavy trout and won both awards.

At the weigh-in Blue River Fly Fishers James Webster was in attendance and Donny and Linda Carter also made it. Donny got a really late start not arriving to the river until amost noon.

Of course part of the fun of the derby is seeing one another and Donny and Chris had to ham it up with each other.

Chris was all smiles winning both awards Saturday.

Carol and I went to our prairie home Saturday evening to check on our pets. We both pretty well died around 7 p.m. Sunday morning I woke up late and we arrived at the river late. Jonathan had already decided to follow Chris into the south wilderness so I went along. Fishing was much better there but it had slowed down from the previous two days. I guess I caught about twenty fish Sunday and I kept culling them thinking I would get one of those "big-uns." I didn't.

Now Saturday, Kody Young decided to use his spinning rod and Kody was totally disgusted with the fishing down where Jonathan and I was fishing. There was a lot of people scratching their heads in Area 1 on Saturday. On Sunday Kody decided to use his fly-rod and would end up winning the heavy stringer fly-fishing award on Sunday. Fly fisher Curt Warner would end up weighing in the heavy trout fly fishing on Sunday and Curt got away before I could get a picture.

One thing I really enjoy about the trout derby is watching the young anglers. I've watched Forrest Latham really come on the last several derbies and Forrest had a heck of an outing this derby. Forrest would end up weighing in over seventeen pounds of trout and win the overall award in the youth division.

Fishing for Chris was much slower on Sunday but he would still end up winning the overall fly-fishing two day total award winning the Susan Shrader Memorial Award. Chris accepted his award from Susie's brother James.

Kody Young with his heavy stringer fly-fishing award for Sunday.

Congratulations to all the winners at the trout derby and thanks to the Blue River Association and all the sponsors for making the derby possible.

Thank Goodness For The Pheasant Tail

The fishing reports that I'd been hearing for the last ten days about Blue River have been rather dismal. The general consensus was that fishing was really slow. Last night fellow caster of fur and feather Jonathan Boeck called and told me he and and a buddy spent five hours on Blue and went skunk.

Despite of the poor reports and with winds blowing between twenty to forty miles per hour today, I decided to stop by and visit Blue to do some fishing...so I thought. I was headed to Tishomingo anyhow and knew I could dedicate an hour to fly-fishing so logic told me I was doing the right thing.

Jiminy Cricket...fishing at Blue right now is slow. I stopped at Glory Hole and started out with a bugger but the bugger failed me. I noticed some frolicking bows at the surface and even though I knew trying to present a dry would be next to impossible I made my feeble attempt non-the-less. My effort was a disaster. I had no back casting room and was trying to cast straight up in the air and into the relentless wind. My dry splashed down like the Sputnik crashing into the ocean. I was forty-five minutes into my hour with Blue and hadn't had a strike. The dreaded fear of going skunk was crawling on me.

I haven't gone skunk in over seven years on Blue but it seemed like today I would. Out of desperation I tied on a Pheasant Tail and didn't bother with a strike indicator. On my second cast of the Pheasant Tail a bow would come to hand. That bow...that came to that Pheasant Tail...sent the skunk fairy packing.

The river today was clear as a bell and extremely low. I noticed back eddies of algae buildup which I haven't seen in sometime. Rain is predicted for the weekend and hopefully the rains will come. Blue sure needs a drink of water.