Running Up The Padre - Laguna Madre Fly Fishers: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

After getting over the fact I had finally made the Port Mansfield Cut, and the fact the water was perfect but completely void of gamefish, I decided to get back to the largest visible group about five-hundred yards back down the beach.

It was difficult to know if the truck carrying the food would be staying there or I would have to chase it one direction or the other, but by the time I reached them I knew that was the summit for that group, and there was plenty of food left. Note – I think the guys at LMFFA would benefit greatly with some kind of radio communication for this event. It would serve as a good safety measure, and to keep the group a bit tighter.

As we ate and fished, occasionally some of the “contestants” would drift southward looking for tarpon signs. Shane sighted one, but it was too far offshore and too random to really drop the sandwich and pick up the ten weight. The handwriting was on the wall.

We turned around and started the journey back. It was going to be a bit more interesting as the tide was taking away the hard sand little by little. The sun had moved further west, and with the benefit of modern polarized sunglasses, it was like being on the submarine at Disneyland.

With only a breeze gusting to ten, the bait looked to be flying through green air. There simply weren’t any dark shadows chasing, and only occasional hints of blowups. Also visible was this brownish algae-looking substance that came in patches that completely masked the aquarium from time-to-time. There is a science and ecology to this fishing every bit as critical as a caddis hatch in the Rockies. I have thrown this observation out to some of the fellow runners, but from other news reports, I am gathering it may be a brown tide.

Nevertheless, the water was mostly stunning, and unlike anything I remembered, with resonant colors ranging from simple sand to jade green and shallow blues. Sand bars, all of them visible, were meandering strips of brown that occasionally broke down allowing currents to funnel bait close to shore and sweep it away just easily. Christo should never see this because he would find a way to wrap it in something.

We stopped, and started, and stuttered and stared at the water – looking for signs of struggle between predator and prey. I finally caught a glimpse of a shadow chasing parallel to the shore. It was shaped like a football, twice as big and moving like a cruise missile. I was out of my depth when it came to identifying unusual saltwater fish on the move, and it didn’t matter anyway because it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. We fished of course, but the action moved away as quickly as it came. I found out later the mysterious shape was a Bontio. What I would have given to get a hook on a Bonito or one of the larger jacks that occasionally pushed a wake along a small wave.

Finally, on one stop, everything came together. The bait was in close and silver flashes revealed something larger at work. They were in the first cut, and so close to shore that they were made virtually invisible by the sand being churned in six inch waves. Keep in mind, I still had nothing that fell into the category of fish porn.

Shane tied into one of the flashes, and the bend of the rod told me I could relax. He landed a very respectable speckled trout, and I landed the article in the Lone Star Outdoor News. Porn sells.

As we approached the end of the sandy sojourn, the newly crowded beaches made the driving more about avoiding humans, cars and sinking trucks, and less about watching the water for signs. The road didn’t go on forever, and this journey was at the end.

Post Script
Of course, thanks to my Grandma, soon to turn 90, for letting me wander along the beach for twelve hours of my visit ostensibly to see her.
Many thanks to the friendly group at Laguna Madre Fly Fishers Association. They welcomed me as if I were a charter member, and some of these friendships are bound to go on. David McDonald, who I met in person in the summer of 2008 was instrumental in providing the spark that lit the fire of this journey. Jim Palumbo, current president of LMFFA, and Shane Wilson, past president, were especially helpful, and as is so often the case, one story leads to another. Shane spearheads a non profit venture called Fishing’s Future, a non-profit organization, that will obviously make TFC if all the stars of scheduling and travel align properly.

 

 Striped Bass at Denison Dam Texas: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A little while back I said something about the possibility of a repeat of 2007 striper action below the Texoma at the Denison Dam tailrace.

It really wasn’t rocket science, if you were to connect the dots from that event to the same dots popping up this late spring the handwriting was on the wall for a bonanza of action on the Red River. And although I missed by about two weeks on when I thought it would turn on, the fun phenomenon continues to this very day.

I was able to get the kayak out today, and starting at the beach on the Oklahoma side, I paddled, fished and cruised all the way down to the I-75 bridge – the GPS shows it to be a four mile round trip. So that means it is two miles to the bridge from the Dam for those of you wondering.

Generation has been very predictable, starting at about 2-pm every day and running into the early evening. This means you will be treated to a veritable rock garden should you choose to fish in the morning, and you will be challenged when they open the gates around 2-pm. Or will you?

Once I was back upstream, about 30 minutes before they started generating, I fished the outside of some of the regular holes we normally fish from the bank with a little success. After the horn went off, I beached the kayak and tried fishing the generation. Finally, I found a sweet spot where there was maximum current right next to slow water — think reading trout streams. I finally found the right fly, a synthetic Clouser in green and white with heavy white eyes, a sinking line, and it was on. These stripers were double to triple the size of all those dinks that were being caught Sunday and they had the added strength of using the current to fight even more. I made quick work of the smaller ones on my six weight, and casted back in the current. I was caught in the “just one more” game.

The constant catching, about every third cast, was drawing the attention of an old guy near me on the bank. I set the hook on a larger fish, and it immediately hit the current and went seventy-five yards into my backing. I knew from earlier fish, that this could be more a factor of current than size, but then a telltale sign – a head shake that felt like a forty pound dog trying to shake off being trained to a leash. I moved along the shore to get an angle away from the current and hopefully direct him out of the current once I started getting backing back. At times it was a dead heat, no give and no take as he apparently just held on the bottom or in the current. The end of my fly line was still seventy-five yards from my rod tip, and I wasn’t about to give up the tension I was holding on the rod.

Finally, he began to give and I began to take back some backing. There were a couple more runs once he was in close, but after he lost the current, he lost the advantage. I landed him and lipped him (one of those Lippa tools is a must for this kind of constant striper action). The kayak had my Boga and tape measure in it, so I walked toward the kayak. When I passed the old guy he said, “You finally got the one you were after didn’t ya’?” “Yup,” I replied. I was seriously thinking about eating this guy, but I measured him at 22-inches and five pounds. I just thought he could maybe grow a little more as I revived him and released him to swim slowly away from the beach. That was my last cast for today.

He wasn’t as big as the 6.5 pound striper I caught Sunday, but he was certainly fatter. If the Sunday fish had been that fat … it probably would have gone eight pounds. Needless to say, I am trying to wrap my mind around a double digit striper now – even a ten pound fish would seriously push the limits of the gear I have been using these days. Who was it that said size and quantity don’t matter? Oh yeah that was me. Time for a bigger rod?

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out the latest issue of Southwest Fly Fishing for a story and photography on Ray Roberts Lake, Texas, as well as the latest issue of Lone Star Outdoor News for a story I wrote about this phenomenon at Denison Dam.