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. 

A Change of Direction.

    As the weather is warming up and spring has sprung, I have decided to take the RRE in a new direction. While the whole thing started as a project for me to fly fish the North Fork all the way from its spring to the Colorado/Nebraska state line, and to catch the fabled wild brown trout that inhabit it. I spend a much larger portion of my time fishing the ponds, lakes, reservoirs, and creeks the feed the Republican. And for all intents and purposes I completed my goals. So now as we enter the spring/summer fishing season I plan to draw my writing towards all the other area fishing I do. Those who know me well, know that between mid April and mid Sept, I fish our local lake as much as 4 days a week for bass. Most of that is between 3:30 and 7:00 am. I still fish the stream for trout up until the water turns to warm, and there are area Reservoirs that feed into the republican full of bass, catfish, crappie, and wiper. And let not forget carp. The bonefish of the Prairie. I spent way more time through the year fishing for these fish than I ever spend fishing the river for trout. So that is where I'm going this year. I'm hoping its going to be a good year, filled with big fish, bigger lies and a few interesting stories. And if not I will make some up and you will never know the difference.

A New Year.

Happy New Year everyone. Today was a really good day here in NEC (North East Colorado). Its been a long, cold and wet late fall and winter so far. But we have had some really nice days the past week and today was great. Almost 60 degrees, sunny, fishy. So kevin and I headed to river after lunch for our first outing of the year. The river was clear, and maybe a little higher than normal. We started out by swinging some wet flies down and accross covering the bends and runs. After a few smaller chubs hooked up, I switched to a micro bugger that I've dubbed a "Sand Sage Special". Its a standard size 10 wet fly hook, white tail, white body, grizzley hackle. This seems to be "THE" fly pattern for this stream. I like to fish them both upstream and drift them like a nymph, as well as cast them down and accross into a swing then strip them back as a streamer. After the change up we started hooking into some bigger fish. Kevin was working small brown nymph and I was swinging my bugger through the cut banks when I hooked into something with real weight. A nice little brown came flying out of the water and threw the hook just a few feet from me. Kevin caught some decent chubs and i caught a really nice fat one that measured in at 10 inchs. Between that and loosing the trout I would say we had a pretty good first fishing trip for 2015. I'm really looking forward to this new year. My wife got me a new tying vice for christmas and I've been tying like crazy. My bass box is stacked real nicely and my small stream box is really looking good. I know I have talked about simplicity before and this year I am really going to focus on that. I went through notes from the last two years and I have been tying only about two dozen patterns total. My bass box has a really good selection of Clouser Minnows, Gurglers, Schminnows, and a couple patterns of my own. My small stream box has some Miracle Midges, Micro Buggers, Elk Hair Caddis, wingless adams, assorted soft hackle wets, and some really simple dubbed nymphs. My small stream box is also doubling as my carp box. So now I'm down to two fly box's total.   I really like the way they are stream lined now. We're going to get more into this in later posts but for now its good to be back and its going to be a good year.

I'm Still Out Here!

I was doing a little web browsing this morning on smallmouth bass fishing in the fall, when I stumbled across a blog called The Republican River Experience. And I thought to myself " Shit I haven't written in a really long time." So hello blog world. How are you doing? And yes I'm still out here. My last post was before the 4th of July, so there is a lot to catch up on. First and foremost I didn't fish the river much this summer. Around mid June the bass fishing on the local lake gets so intense that its all I really focus on until the end of August. My bass fly fishing takes place between 3:30 am and 7:00 am three days a week during the summer months. And this summer was no exception. All total I brought over 90 largemouth bass to hand between June 7th and Aug 30th. The largest weighing in around 7.5 pounds. And lost lord knows how many. I also brought an impressive 17 channel catfish in, 8 crappie, and several hundred bream. All on fly tackle. Not a bad summer. I learned some new things which is always good. Saw some amazing things, and witnessed a few that really hurt my feelings. Fished some new waters this summer that were good if not downright awesome. Took the kids fly fishing several times. Always fun. So yea it was a really good summer. And now its almost November. And even though I have been to the Republican a few times in the last two months my focus has mostly turned to Work and Waterfowl. Around here especially in my line of work fall means harvest. Corn and Soybean harvest to be specific. And since about mid Sept I have been at work nearly everyday doing my part to get these fall crops in. With the small amount of time I have had off I have taken advantage of my other obsession which is waterfowl hunting. But that has nothing to do with fly fishing the republican river so I won't indulge on it, although the feathers I collect from wood ducks, teal, and mallards as well as pheasants, geese, and turkeys do contribute to my fly tying every year. I am hoping to get in on some mid fall brown trout action if I can and there is always winter stream fishing which is one of my favorite times of year. The river survived the summer heat ok. Better than the past few summers anyway. But it seems to get just a little lower and a little slower every year. Its hard to watch but what can you do? Anyways I'm back and I plan on doing a lot more writing soon. I might even ask Santa for a new digital camera so I can ad more pictures to my posts.

Jungle Warfare

With a watchful eye, I make slow deliberate steps through the chest-tall grass, aware of any danger that might be underfoot. The sound of flowing water is just ahead of me now. Not the fast moving rush of a big river, but the slow sliding gurgle of a warm water stream gently passing by. I am nearly in it before I realize that I'm even on its banks. Suddenly, I hear a screech overhead and a shadow whizzes past. Just a chicken hawk on its way out for an evening meal. The stream cuts deeply to my right and the water is slowed by the sudden change in direction. It's here I am briefly made aware of the presence of my target. There under the bank a dark shadow sits among the slow swirling weeds and water. I prepare my weapon for the attack.  It's a short rod, only a 7 footer, smooth rolled fiberglass and cork. The line is light - 5wt with a 7 foot leader. At the end, a small black fly is tied on. The fly is meant to look like a lot of things and look like nothing at the same time. That's why it's effective here. I judge the distance to my target and check the wind and current. 25 feet, maybe 30. If I misjudge, my fly will hit the water too close to the fish. If it's too short, the fish might not see it at all. Making a good cast in this tall grass is difficult, but I manage to hit the water about two feet in front of the cut bank with just enough slack in the line to get a perfect drift. The line goes tight with the current, then it goes even tighter with sudden extra weight. The water explodes. Victory is mine.