Fly Fishing For Carp
Now Hear This! Fish-pandemonium Underway
Where to begin? How about: IT DOESN’T Get Any Better
Depending on where you are and what you know about the preeminent carp fly fishing lake in Texas, there’s a tale of two lakes going on right now. One side is blowing-and-going, and the other requires a bit more of a search. The juvenile males are running rough shod through the flats, not stopping to eat and in search of love. They look entirely like a spawning crew – small and difficult to distract into consuming.
If you don’t pull the trigger NOW, I will guarantee you that the action curve will bend, and it WILL GET tougher. The numbers are huge, and so are the shots at catching the challenging carp. Play the odds amigo & amiga!
Meanwhile the big femmes are ready to eat. Their work is done, and they have the munchies.
Lake Lavon Carp and Buffalo
I had perfect conditions on Lake Lavon, Wednesday, and after a lot of searching to find a location given by a kayaker at the ramp – I found a nice sandbar between shore and an island that was crawling with carp and dark-shadowed buffalo. I did catch a couple of commons in all, but also bagged this 14.5-pound buffalo. I don’t know what it is about me and the buffs, but I seem to have finally dialed them in. I say that, next thing I will be trying and trying with NO LUCK. They are a tough fish to get to eat a fly.
This 14.5’er should unseat the current record of 10.67 caught on a Clouser (?) in July of 2011. It’s hard to find the time for the paperwork though! Records are made to be broken.
Netting that monster was pure comedy! It just flopped out of the net and kept going. Remind me! I gotta’ get a bigger net!
SANTA FE TEXAS
Our thoughts, concerns and prayers go out to Santa Fe, Texas, today. You’ll recall the story I did on artist and writer Mike Quinn awhile back. I vividly recall his kids getting home and hopping off the bus out front, coming over to meet me … they’re all okay.
YOUTUBE FANS – There simply are not enough hours in my week to be able to assemble the video report today. Besides THIS WEEK LOOKS A LOT LIKE LAST WEEK, except A LOT BETTER and MORE of it!
Friday Texas Fly Fishing Report
Here’s the deal on Fly Fishing in Texas this Mother’s Day
First, don’t do it on Mother’s Day – that is if the mothers in your life matter. Next, if it doesn’t matter, get a look at this video and watch through to the end. That is when we get three other fly fishing guides to tell us what is happening in Texas Fly Fishing this weekend – AND BEYOND!
For this YouTube video — I heard from:
- Captain Ken Jones – www.kenjofly.com
- Captain William Townsend – www.lightandfly.com
- Guide Danny Scarborough – www.houstonflyfishing.com
Thanks for reporting, and if you guide and want to report – photographs and information are due by 1-pm every Friday, and you can TEXT THAT TO ME for best results. Give me images, preferably horizontal, and any text BUT INCLUDE name / date / location (in general), and I will publish your photos and reports. It really is that easy for you to be a part of these reports. THIS IS HOW the REPORTS were ORIGINALLY DESIGNED TO FUNCTION.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND AND LOVE YOUR MOMMA!
Texas Weather Beating Us Down
Here’s the deal. Timing is everything when it comes to fly fishing.
Well, you’ve heard it before, if you are a TFC old-timer, but the vast majority of you are (statistically) fresh meat for the Texas Fly Fishing follies. Timing is everything. And, across the board, the weather continues to create bad times in Spring 2018 Texas fly fishing. April was nearly a total loss, and May came in like a lion this week.
What does this weather mean, and what does it do to our fly fishing intentions for 2018?
I was not too surprised to view last week’s valuable Texas Insider Fishing Report, and hear guides across Texas phone in their reports on the “tough conditions” presented by our weather in April (now into May). And these sad spring conditions reach all the way to the Texas Gulf Coast fishing and down from there. It may not be as intense there, but it still puts a damper on things.
For the unique fly fishing waters of Lake Ray Roberts, this weather means a bumper crop of carp again this year. Two words to you blood sport carp bow killers, and I’ll use the initials if you’re reading this; F. Y. and get a life. Seriously though, the rain right now does two things — protects the fish from predation, and second, it keeps spawning habitat hydrated. And that’s what I saw when I was …
SNEAKING BETWEEN RAINDROPS YESTERDAY
The wind was howling as the skies cleared about 1:30 on Thursday, and that’s all the window I needed to go walk, wade and search for some sanity. The carp are there, and in pretty good numbers. The stage is something of a pre-spawn, with females lethargic to the point, well watch the video … and the males? They are daisy chaining, grab-tailing and looking for action of the S E X kind – more than eating. You remember how it was when you were that age, right? For me to get an eat was quite a feat. It took several fly changes, and subscribers to the YouTube Channel’s Private Channel will get that fly name and a photograph of the fly that did the trick. I didn’t miss being on the skiff at all – because I would have blown right by the fish in those winds!
Today, Friday, May 4, may the force be with you – because the rains came back, and they’ve been going for about 8 hours now. Tomorrow promises to break good, and so do the next 5-7 days. Of course the wind will crush a few of those, but this is the longest straight run so far this season.
FLY GUIDE SERVICE/PRICE CHANGES
Make sure you contact me for the newest pricing for my guide services for 2018. This one supersedes all others, and breaks some new ground as far as scheduling and time on the water. Be sure to check out the brand new page FLY FISHING TRAVEL which gives you the most complete picture of where you can stay, and what you can do if you want to spend an entire weekend near Lake Ray Roberts, Texas. I will have information provided by the businesses there – in hand – next week, and can mail you a set of these brochures and business cards about Pilot Point and Lake Ray Roberts – ON REQUEST. Carp on the fly, on Ray Roberts, no longer should be considered an in-and-out thing. It may be hard to believe, but it really is true!
Thanks for watching and reading! Go. Go. Go.
Friday Fly Fishing Report and Events You Should Experience in North Texas This Weekend
Fish Aren’t Biting? Time To Grab a Bite and hit a real FESTIVAL!
Thanks for backing your viewing – of the Texas Fly Fishing Report – with some more information on what is going on in the North Texas area IN WRITING.
This comes out in advance of the video report which will be added to this post later today. Along with the video on the Texas Fly Caster YouTube Channel, that report will be simulcast live on the Russian Channel called Facebook. So welcome to all of our Communist friends via Facebook! Once that simulcast is recorded to (I call it) FaKebook, it will be deleted from their record. One cannot be too safe when it comes to FaKebook sharing these days!
STARDATE SUPPLEMENTAL
There may have been a worse fly fishing April in the last ten years, but I can’t remember a single one. This April (2018) has been marred by the strange weather patterns that allow for, at best, two days of fly fishing a week, and even then the damage from the prior days has carried over into the good days. For example, yesterday could have been fairly good, and I was out early with Finn, but no. Expectations and a decade of log books suggested it is time to look for carp on the warmer rocky points, as they begin to congregate and point in to the coves. If only the temperature were above 50-degrees when we started, and if only the water temperature were on the rise, and if only the wind were dialed down to (the predicted) five from the howling fifteen. Not only were the fish not there, they WERE NOT THERE.
So you and I are left to wait and rely on the internal clocks of our quarry – that is the final trigger that always gets pulled, regardless of conditions. I would suggest you bide your time at your neighborhood or pasture ponds, wait for your rivers to settle, head for the salt, or enjoy this weekend’s festivities …
DISSONANT CONVERGENCES
Just like there are harmonic (some would say dissonant) convergences of fly fishing events here in Texas, North Texas in particular, this weekend offers another convergence of events that our highly evolved audience may enjoy and bring family along with no hesitation.
While Denton continues to evolve at a pace I have never seen in my 36 years here, it still offers some down-home grass root fun. For example the Denton Arts & Jazz event, a true “FESTIVAL,” is going on this weekend in Denton. If you are a walk winer, and want a parking place up against the door everywhere you go? Too bad. You’ll have to walk a little – very little – to get to this event. Keep in mind, it is a Denton walk — meaning it is safer and distances are much closer than in the Messtroplex. And this event is bordered by some fantastic beer and food opportunities.
There are also events surrounding the FESTIVAL that glom on to the hundreds of thousands of people that attend each year. One such is the Grand Opening at Cave Handcrafted Home Furnishings put on by owner and artist Mark Holderbaum. Full disclosure – I built Cave’s website. The list of different related events are too long to print here, but are what makes the Arts & Jazz qualify as a TRUE FESTIVAL.
AUBREY & PILOT POINT
There’s a lot of flesh being put on the bones of these two small North Texas towns these days. And I don’t just mean the chicken-fried-stakes at Buff’s in Pilot Point, Texas.
SATURDAYS in Pilot Point mean the Whistle Post Brewery and Western Son Distillery are open for business! Located near the tracks, and about a block as the crow flies, from the increasingly famous Lowbrows, these three places are arguably becoming the center of gravity for new life in Pilot Point. Restaurants are popping up there now, and this is all framed by the fact that barely three miles away lies the most popular walk-wade carp flat in Texas.
SATURDAY is also the culmination of the Aubrey Pasture Pickins event. I’ve already gone over the history of the event, and this is most likely the LAST TIME THIS EVENT will be held here. No holds are barred, and deals are to be made for antiques, rustic pieces for your outdoor bar, fence posts, horse trailers, boots, faded jeans and old western memorabilia. When it’s gone, IT’S GONE. Nearby the Pasture Pickins is a little row of businesses that include the “World Famous MOMS,” and, “The Upper Park Cafe” on South Main in historic buildings still standing there. Here is your map hint — https://goo.gl/maps/8iKweoNZdET2 Be sure to watch the Instagram feed or the Twitter feed for photos from the Pasture today. Here is their FaKebook page – Aubrey Pasture Pickins.
Thanks for reading, and being able to read! THANK A TEACHER YOU KNOW! I hope you take the time later today to tune into the Commie-Cast or watch the YouTube report for information about fly fishing in your neck of the Texas woods.
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