Friday - January 20

Finally! Back on the river!!! And what a strange day! Weather, that is... All morning was in the 40's and drizzly/foggy. By early afternoon the temps warmed and eventually the day finished without a cloud to be seen! Actually turned into the beautiful day that it was supposed to be!

Ben and Ann Wallace (Texarkana) made it up for a first taste of fly fishing. It was a start from scratch day for them and plenty of information was disseminated throughout the afternoon! And for the most part, they did quite well with casting!

And several fish thought so as well!

We've been getting two-a-day generation all week and we arrived at Riverside in the late morning... Along with a bunch of other folks! But by the time we got ready to step into the water quite a few of them had moved to other locations! Saw Jim Brady and Garey Perkins out there and both had gotten a few fish on an assortment of patterns.

Once Ann and Ben got a good handle on the "Drag & Roll" we attached an A & W on Ann's and on Ben's, a new version of the Bead Belly I've been playing with lately! It's kind of cool - I've been using the same blend that I use on the B & B Little Mo' Wooly! Very nice dark pattern to round out the Bead Belly triumvirate! It produced the first strike of the day and broke the ice for us though it was only a brief meeting between fish and Ben!

Ann Wallace gets the first fish of the day in close! >>>>>

Turned out that Ann was the first to get a fish in hand! There were quite a few fish wandering the Flat as they are apt to do, but the strikes were spread out under the heavy overcast and still waters. All of a sudden, in the early afternoon, the air started to move and a little sun began filtering through!

The fish got a little busier through the mid-day hours and both Ben and Ann had quite a few fish on, just not a bunch landed! But they were getting a good rhythm going on the casts and retrieves! And there were just enough fish giving them a hit here and there! Definitely not furious fishing, but enough to keep one interested!

We went ahead down to Hind's Bluff to see how crowded it was - not too bad so we stepped into the faster water at the top of the pool. Oddly, not much going on up there... But shortly everyone had cleared out and we had the place to ourselves all of a sudden and we tried the lower end of the pool with Long Creeks fished deep.

That did produce some interest with the rods bent a couple of times. But you had to get the fly deep into the groove. Consistent presentations and drifts do make a difference! And when the guys hit the line just right, there was usually something happening!

Ben and Ann got a pretty decent sampling on their first effort on the river, I think... We've had worse days - we've had better! Experience certainly has a lot to do with results, after all... But, nobody got hurt, there were fish, it was a good day!

The SWEPCO link to the generation for this week was messed up as many of you found out... Fortunately they got next week's right and we've got a little more water each day than the last two weeks, but two-a-days none the less.

The schedule for next week shows generation from 6:00 AM to Noon, and then shut down for four hours - cranking back up from 4:00 PM to 10:00. It's a short window and it means you can fish down to Hind's Bluff until 4:45. The Factory Site might be getting nicely fishable by then and high water won't get to Low Water Bridge until 6:15, though it will still be running pretty borderline at that point anyway!

The chart does show "16's" from 4:00 to 5:00, rather than "24's" though. So, there might be a little more time before they actually open, or it could mean that they won't be running full capacity during the hour. The "8", "16" and "24" indicates how many kilowatt-hours are scheduled to be produced in that hour. "24" is full capacity generation. Won't know what's happening until Monday at 4:00...

And as normal, nothing scheduled for the weekend - just like this weekend... We will likely see another load of Net Pen fish get loaded in on all that high water next week too! I like that!

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Sunday - January 8

2012! Happy New Year a little late to everyone! By this time next year we will know if the Mayans did indeed know something we don't! In the meantime we'll keep fishing!

Got back here mid-week after a long holiday break! I was sick, Sandy was sick, went ahead and stayed in Louisiana longer than I had planned. Getting back here was kind of strange! I went out for a bit on Thursday, enough to confirm what folks have been echoing on the reports - fishing was generally kind of quiet. Some folks had good activity, others only marginal.

I hit the Low Water Bridge shoals with the water still flowing pretty significantly, just about to nicely fishable levels. But I was a little disappointed to find only a couple of fish in the lower part of the shoals. I stopped in at Hind's Bluff and picked up a few more there, but it's nowhere near the furious fishing that we'll likely see in the latter half of this month.

We will see some serious stocking over the next few weeks! And with the "two-a-day" generation continuing we should have nice numbers of fish really spread out! By the way, this week's schedule has been expanded to generation from 6 AM to Noon and shut down from Noon to 6 PM! With the exception of this Wednesday when there's nothing scheduled... Not sure what that's about, but four out of five days is just fine and as usual, nothing for the weekend.

I was out with Ronny Skinner (Brinkley, AR) on Friday as he was looking to get some instruction and information as much as anything. That was good, because the fish certainly weren't very cooperative! They were that way yesterday as well.

Ronny Skinner experiences a "Wardrobe Malfunction"... >>>>>

Most everyone I've talked to said the fish were pretty quiet and I think the dreary weather has as much to do with that as anything. They are very spread out and they were pretty subdued and finicky when you did get into a couple.

Ronny and I were in the riffles at Hind's Bluff when he said his boot was coming off. It was getting close to stop time (we were all getting ready to watch the Hawgs whup up on K State anyway) so we got out. It wasn't that his boot was coming off - it had exploded! I think I've gotten about all the use out of that old pair of Hodgman's as I'm going to get!

<<<<<  If you ever wanted to know what goes into the structure of a wading boot I have a pair that I can use to show you!

Yesterday I finally got into the Sycamore to Confluence stretch and was somewhat disappointed in that too! I headed straight to the Pasture Pool where I expected to get into a reasonable number of fish and maybe even something interesting! Nothing doing, unless you count about a dozen Spiny Headed Creekchubs as interesting...

There were only a few fish visible and I raised only one of them! Same thing at the Confluence Hole and the Pipeline. Now, either there's very few fish in the entire stretch or they really were subdued by the conditions. It was balmy, heavy overcast, even a tiny bit of misty drizzle and generally unstable. They just don't like that. You'd have sworn there just weren't any fish in the river!

I raised a couple in the Sycamore on the way out, but that was like pulling teeth. I did get one really nice Eagle Lake fish in the fast run of the Skinny Water and could count on one hand the others I saw as I made my way back down to the Park. A slight concentration of fish at the Triangle and Trough... I met up with the Falkoff gang at Riverside coming back in as I was getting out and they said it had been pretty quiet for them as well!

Just one of those days, apparently... The forecast is calling for a little stormy for the next couple of days but really nice January weather for the rest of the week! Combine that with a little more generation and a big load of fish and it should be a much better week!

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Tuesday - December 20

Not a whole lot going on around here lately - other than fighting off a sinus thing, tying flies and finding out that we've now got high water!

This was cool though!!! As I was coming back into town last week - just about the time I crossed the river on HWY 27 my car turned 250,000! Sheeezh! How's that for Karma and location! Even had to document it!

I did get out a little bit last week, Friday and it was just downright cold. That explained why my fingers were stinging after a while! It was in fact 37° while I was out and fortunately the wind wasn't blowing. I did see Patti and Billy Guin at the Park and they said if it had been windy they probably wouldn't have been out either!

Up in the Skinny Water there was another pair of Bow's setting up house-keeping and they were there for several days, despite the two-a-day generation last week. I doubt that the round the clock high water we are getting now was going to help the spawning cause at all! But again, it was nice to see about a 15 incher at least giving it a shot! And this was no stocker!

I was picking up fish occasionally with Bead Belly's and a Long Creek Light as I made my way back down through the Chute to the Triangle. The most significant catch I had was a 13 inch Brown, one of last spring's stocking with the freeze brand and adipose fin clipped! A little on the lean side, but beautifully colored! You can definitely tell the difference when a Brown hits! A whole different feel on the other end!

The lake is in fact more than a foot into flood pool right this minute and we've got 24/7 generation scheduled through the weekend. Unless we get a bunch of rain before then, I suspect they should be able to get the lake down to 548' sometime Friday and maybe they'll go back to a normal schedule for next week. Unless they're worried about a wet period for the next couple of weeks... I haven't looked at any "long range" forecasts lately...

On the other hand - high water means not a lot of fishing pressure and fish spreading all over the river! And this week is about as good a time to not be able to fish as any! And a full lake at this time of year means another deep cold core for the summer unless they have to suck it out of there late in the spring or early summer!

Well, given the high water and the holiday weekend to come - I'll be heading back south again until next week! If you haven't gotten your fly orders in by now, they'll just have to wait till next week! Ya'll have a great Christmas weekend!

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Thursday - December 8

Round and round we go!

Busy week and seems like there's one day fewer each week to do it in! We had a great time in Houston watching B-Ball! The girls went 4 an 1 in the tournament beating three teams they weren't really expected to beat! Pretty cool!

This Tuesday, Jon Strait (Nashville, AR) came over and braved the elements to get a casting session in with some fishing that followed. Yes, it was quite wintry on Tuesday! Complete with 37°, drizzle, sleet, snow, thousands of geese flying overhead and quiet fishing! Yep, apart from "Aaron D", who apparently had just left for the day when we got out, we were the only maniacs to be out there Tuesday afternoon. At least it wasn't windy! As much as we'd like a little chop on the water, that wet wind-chill would have been brutal!

We got action on the Bead Belly and the A & W. I suspect we could have thrown just about anything and gotten the same results as many of you are finding at this time. I did see the nice reports of some hold-over fish still being caught over the last few days. That's great to hear! Jon and I saw mostly freshies around the Flat and with the conditions the way they were I'm surprised we saw much of anything!

I saw that Aaron reported a decent day before we arrived Tuesday afternoon. I also got a good report the other day from Eric Anderson who got into some fish through the Sycamore Run down to the Confluence Hole! He also said that the AGFC stocked last Thursday - probably at all five sites actually - but definitely at The Factory Site and Low Water as well as Hind's Bluff. The first load went in at Albert Pike too!

Beautiful, fast, white watery, Couch Hole Shoal at River Ridge today! >>>>>

Looks like we've got at least a couple days of "Two-A-Days" generation this week. The RiverGages website showed no generation on Monday or Tuesday even though it was on the schedule. They did open up yesterday evening at 6:00, on schedule, and this morning as well, shutting down at 9 AM. I hope that's the schedule we see for some time to come. It'd be awesome!

I just came in from a little bit of fishing just to kind of look around for a while. It was so nice to see some moving water on the river again! Fishing falling water is always the best and I enjoyed watching a fly drift quickly through the riffles for a change!

I did get one really nice Brown up in the Park, a fresh one, but about 13 inches none the less! I threw Smudges, Long Creeks and A&W's at them and did the best with an A&W, even fishing it dry! Including one 12 inch resident Rainbow in the Flat that came up the floating fly and gulped it in casually and confidently! That was sun!

Well, I'm about to fly off again! Teaching tennis this evening and then heading straight to Shreveport for all sorts of activities! Moving a piano, entertainment center, playing with grandboys, seeing Cirque du Soilel and then maybe back to the river!

Ya'll enjoy some chilly mornings this week!

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Wednesday - November 30

Well, by most reports the fishing is still a little off... Fish have been sporadic and touchy.

I'm already on the road tonight for Houston and our annual "B-Ball" trip! Sandy's daughter has one of the best girls teams (Seven Lakes) in Texas this year and this week they always play a big tournament in and around Katy. We try to see as many games in the course of three days as we can! So just a brief word tonight!

I did get out last Saturday with Jim McMichael and Kathy Sledge as we dodged more storms in the morning and took our time getting into the water. With the weather the way it was I was pretty sure the fish weren't going to be in a very god mood anyway, but we did see some, got a few hits and some good instruction for Kathy!

Jim had a couple in the Triangle take good shots at the Bead Belly, I believe, that we had on first. He also had some action on the Light Cahill R & A and we did similarly at the Sycamore Run with an A & W and Long Creek!

But generally it was kind of a one shot day! And that's what I heard from other folks as well... I spent the rest of the last couple of days working on a rod and tying flies - even shipped some to Sweden today! And of course enjoying the Saints put the big hurt on the Giants!

It's only going to get better I think, though! AGFC should be bringing in another load of fish this week since they did not bring any last week. They may well have shown up today, but I didn't get out to see before leaving town. I know there were a couple of regulars out there today - maybe they can give us some reports!

In the meantime, I'll be following the bouncing ball the next few days and be back on the river Tuesday! Ya'll keep everyone in touch!

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Tuesday - November 22

Some quick catching up to do! There has, in fact, been a bunch of fishing going in the last ten days!

Saturday, a week ago, Tate and Gina Ervin came out with her dad, David Smith (Shreveport, LA) to get in a trip that we've been trying to do since this time last year!!! We had a pretty nice time with David getting the best of the fish, Tate getting his share and Gina having to work really hard for hers, but everybody caught fish - nobody got hurt!

David Smith gets ready to release a really broad bodied 'Bow! >>>>>

We even got into a couple of nice fat Browns! I tell you what, those are really aggressive and hard hitting fish! The Bow's actually seem a little tame compared to them on the initial attack! But they are already getting pretty wily! We're getting a lot of refusals and sometimes complete disdain!

Never the less, you will pick up one here and there and you'll know it when you do! You'd best not be striking back on them too hard or you'll be tying on some new tippet and flies! They've got some serious teeth in them jaws!

<<<<<  Tate Ervin shows off a really nice sharp jawed Brown at Copperhead Crossing!

Last week, formerly Round Rock, TX - new M'boro resident, Gordon "Coattails" Spencer came out with his buddy, Robert Tharpe (Austin, TX) for a day of fishing! Robert had never taken a shot at fly fishing so, while we worked on some initial casting, Gordon wandered around the Flat and picked up a few fish. We had pretty nice conditions through the day - nice breezes and decent action.

There were enough fresh fish running around still and Robert managed to get his first fish on and in after a while! Gordon had one really nice chunky fish up around Copperhead Crossing. As I recall, we were fishing both Bead Belly's and A & W's and they were producing steadily - just not furiously...

That seems to have been the over all pattern lately. Steady, but not furious...

This past Friday Ken Ferrell and Butch Huff (Lafayette, LA) came up, also to get in a trip that we've been trying to do for most of the year. We'd been scheduled a couple of times already, but high water and assorted events kept getting in the way all the way back to last winter!

The guys were having a real good time implementing some new technique and putting it all together to pick up a few fish... It's been tough fishing the last few days what with the storm system that decided to move in over the weekend and get things "disturbed" - and ya'll know how the trout don't really like that...

We had to work pretty hard to get the takes that we did and we threw a bunch of things at them too. The A & W seemed to be the most consistent, though we did get fish on the Light Cahill R & A and Long Creeks. We threw the Bead Belly, Smudge and B & B Little Mo' Wooly!

Gordon Spencer gets a lot of splash from this one in the Flat! >>>>>

All of them got interest at least, if not takes! The fishing kind of went downhill on Saturday as the weather went with it! The bad stuff didn't come in until Sunday afternoon, but the table was set on Saturday! The day started out rather nice and cool, but during the evening I could feel the temperature and humidity rise dramatically in the course of just a few minutes!

Ken and Butch were so kind as to share with me a bunch of super fresh, super tasty Gold Band Oysters that an associate of Ken's produces! Ya'll check out their website - they've got a really interesting way of handling their crop! Man! Dat's good! Thanks guys!!!

We finished those off at the Hind's Bluff access to "celebrate" a nice trip all in all, as Ken put it!

Well, in between storms on Monday Mike Hart (Tatum, TX) and I squeezed in some fishing around the shallows behind Jim Simpson's cabin at Riverside! I showed Mike the "Drag & Roll" and he put it together rather effectively after a bit. All the while a few fish were showing themselves towards the Old Mill Dam, up against the boulders as they typically do.

We eventually got into a good position and threw an A & W back there with some success. Unfortunately the first fish that hit Mike produced the very classic "hammered" strike reaction and I was tying on another tippet and fly. Mike learned his lesson real quick and did much better after that!

<<<<<  Robert Tharpe's first Little Mo' trout was this nice Brown!

But the weather was not helping us at all, we even stood through a pretty hefty shower with big drops, but at least the worst of the thunder and storm cells stayed off to the west and didn't run us off. The big bad stuff didn't hit here until late last night. Wouldn't let me get to sleep until after 1:00! i had to keep watching the skies to the west most of the night!

We did get some serious rain, though, and I think I heard the hints of some small hail. Fortunately despite two tornado warnings, it wasn't all that bad here, but there was a helluvalot of lightning! The lake has responded quickly to all of the rain that has fallen u in the mountains as well.

The HWY 84 gauge at Langley spiked at 12.26' around 3:00 this morning (again 3 1/2 feet is about normal) and the lake has now risen three feet in 36 hours - now at 542.16'! We've had a bunch of water up there and it's heading into the lake much faster than I would have expected! I guess we could call this a drought breaker, with more to come at the end of this week apparently, but probably not a drought "fixer" yet...

I'm sure Texas would like to see this kind of system come through ever three days or so for quite a while!

I got the word from the AGFC trout folks that they have in fact stocked at the Old Factory Site and Low Water already. In fact that was the last time they were here, there just weren't a lot going in to those two sites. The other tid-bit of information from Melissa Jones was that they don't plan to bring another load in until after Thanksgiving weekend. So for all of you planning to fish this week, be prepared for maybe not so many fish as you might have expected. You're going to have to actually "fish" this time!!!

I'm heading south for the holiday, so ya'll have a great time this weekend! Go Tigers and / or Hawgs! It's going to be a fun and interesting day Friday!

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Always On The Water - Jeff