First Bass Session of 2015

     So as of last night the 2015 Bass Season is officially underway for me here in the Republican River Valley. Its hard for me to peruse through the Warm Water, and Bass on the Fly fan pages of Facebook because it seems as if every other angler in the country is already into bass way before me. But now I can lay my claim as one of them. The mornings are still way to cold and dark to be of any good. So I set my sights on an evening session. The day had been in the low 70's, so I hit the lake at 7pm in hope of catching something before dark. Even with the warm day the water temp is still pretty damn cold, but I was able to wet wade through it. Most of the evening was spent as just on the water casting practice, but just before full darkness set in I had a sudden jerk and live weight on the end of the line. I had been using a small black fly in size 6 that I simply call the little black fly. If I had to put a label on it I would say it looks like a small leech or tadpole. But the truth is its just a simple black buggy looking thing that moves really slow and looks like food. I really prefer using this type of fly early in the season when the water is still cold simply because there is still not much moving in the lake this time of year, and I think big, splashy, heavy flies spook the bass a bit.
   He was a little guy, maybe a pound and a half at best. You could have fit a golf ball in his open mouth but not much more. So I am guessing more than a pound less than two. I was so excited I didn't even think to grab the camera and get a picture. But that was my official first bass of 2015 and with any luck and a whole lot of time on the water I plan to add a lot more to the count. Game On!

Dedication

I catch a significant number of fish every year. Going back through my fishing notes from 2014, I landed over 90 largemouth bass between May and the end of August. That's an average of 1.3 bass per day. Of course I don't fish every day, though my wife says otherwise. The point being that when you break it down to roughly 3 days per week for 16 weeks its safe to say that I catch two bass every time I go out. When you add in the fact I do nearly 90% of my fishing between 3:00 am and 7:00 am the numbers become much more compact. And that's the whole point. If you want to catch fish, you have to set yourself up to catch fish. People ask me all the time where I catch my fish and what I catch them on? And most of them look at me like I'm either crazy or lying when I tell them I am fishing locally and with a fly rod. Then I tell them I get up at 3am and go out before work and that's when the name calling and four letter words start flying. But its a simple fact. If you want to catch fish you, have to go fishing at the times of the day when fish are feeding. And here's a NOT so little secret, when its 105 degrees F, on a Saturday afternoon, that is not the time.  If you want to go to the lake and sit in a chair, in the hot afternoon sun, drinking beer and drowning worms. By all means be my guest. And people call me crazy. Catching fish of any type requires Dedication. It means tracking sunrise tables, and moon phases a month in advance. It means watching the weather down to the finial hours before bed the night before going out, incase of sudden pressure drops. It means rigging rods and rebuilding leaders the evening before so that you waste no time once you get to the water. Setting an alarm for 3am and actually getting up when it goes off. Packing you lunch for work the night before and having your work cloths ready so you can stay until the last possible second before going about your daily life. And there's more. I'm a fly angler, so I had to learn to fly cast and tie knots in the dark. There is no turning on a flashlight when your standing in the water, unless you want to scare every damn fish in the area away. I had to learn where the shallow flats in the lake were so that I could wade in the dark and not end up drowning myself. This may all seem like a lot of work just to catch a fish. And the truth is your right. But that's just how it is. And I think that dedication is the key to any successful hobby. I don't care if  its golf, or building hot rods, or bird watching, they all require some form of dedication to be good at them. Its also the reason why I have very few fishing buddies and almost always fish alone. But that just makes the lies easier to tell.

Signs of Life.

Its not a huge secret that winter is not my favorite season. And being a ++ sized guy I'm not real fond of the dead of summer heat either. But spring time is just about right. I had a chance to go visit the river the other day. It was in the mid 50s and the sun felt really good. I was hoping to try out a new version of Micro Bugger. This one is tied with a few strands of Red Fox tail hair as the tail, an olive dubbed body, and grizzly hackle, oh and a small dark bead. All on a standard length size 10 nymph hook. The river is still a bit high but very clean. So I worked my way down stream letting out line down and around the curves and then slowly working it back against the current. After about 20 minutes I got a really hard hit. A solid 9 inch brown came from under the cut bank and drilled the bugger with murderous intentions. Even for its small size, there is just something to be said for the way a brown trout fights. But the fight was short and sweet, and the fish was healthy and beautiful. After I slipped him back in the water I looked around and started noticing thing I had not noticed until now. Birds were chirping a bit louder, the air smelled clean and new. Even the grass along the banks of the republican are starting to get a whole lot of green to them. "All good signs" I thought to my self. With that I headed home.