9/20-25/2010

Hello again, this week I went to a training class in Irving, TX. While there I figured I would get in a little fishing at California Crossing park on the Trinity River and hit Northwest Lake park as well. The Trinity River was about 6 feet higher than I saw it 8 months ago during my last training class, this made it very hard to fish so I cut out early. This area has a bunch of drainage canals and I fished the one right behind the hotel with no luck but I did spot a cottonmouth snake.

Wednesday I hit the Northwest Park, there was only one other fisherman at the park and it didn't look like much. Using chicken gizzards marinated in garlic, I caught 4 catfish, they looked to be yellowcats and one was of decent sized. I also managed to catch 2 turtles much to the happiness of some little kids nearby. The kids bugged me about fishing so I let them dap my fly rod in the water and they each caught a small perch. The perch were so hungry they even hit on my strike indicator. I caught a few perch as well on the fly rod.

Plans were for me to fish Salado Creek under 35 in Salado, Tx on the way back and then stop by Living Waters fly shop in the Round Rock area, finishing off hitting Brushy Creek. Class normally finishes early on the last day so that was the plan, unfortunately my son was sick Thursday night and the wife wanted me home so I left early. The boy checked out ok Thursday night so I hit Salado creek here by the house (a different Salado Creek than the one in Salado, TX).

While the banks were muddy from recent rains, the water was pretty clear Friday morning. I used mostly a hopper pattern and had some decent luck with perch and caught 2 Rios:

This morning I hit the creek again, this time fishing more upstream from where I was yesterday. There was less visibility this morning do to some showers yesterday afternoon but it wasn't too bad. Today woolly buggers were what the fish wanted and I managed to catch 2 Rios and several perch. A spotted bass about a foot long hit on my fly but I wasn't quick enough in setting the hook, most fish this morning were timid in hitting the fly. It seemed most hits were on the tail of the bugger so I was unable to set the hook on many of the takes I had. I'm very happy with this rod, it was a cheap fiberglass blank I picked up from eBay for $14 shipped and then put about $30 in components on it, it was also my first attempt in putting a rod together.

The big Rio I caught put a nice bend in that 7'6" #5 rod when it was trying to head for some roots to tangle me up in. All in all it was a great morning.