Monday - February 1

Catching up again... it took me a while to thaw out yesterday evening! I thought, maybe, we were done with real winter after the big freeze a couple of weeks ago!

Not...

But Saturday afternoon I went to deliver flies to SWAHA (which has quite the collection of A&W's, Long Creeks, Woolies and Smidges, by the way...) only to find that there are truly crazy people out there. I pulled up at the Marina to see about 60 boats starting to come in from a bass tournamnet on the lake! That's no less than 120 crazy people!

Mind you - the official high Saturday was 30° ! With clouds - and about 15-20 mph winds! Much less these guys going about 60 mph out on the water! Jeeeezzz! But as one of the guys said - You can go fast and be really cold for a couple of minutes or you can go slow and be really cold for a long time!

I chose to stay in and tie flies!

Interesting effect driving up ARK 19 from the Boro, though. When I got up on the first ridge around Hind's Bluff the trees were significantly iced from Friday's freezing rain, but only on top of the ridge! Same thing when I got up to the 750' elevation at Dynamite Hill!

<<<<<   Freeze line up at Dynamite Hill!

I had noticed, watching the radar images, Friday afternoon that the ridges of Rich Mountain and Black Fork Mountain at Mena and Fourche Mountain due north of here - all well over 2,000 feet - were showing clearly ice/snow as opposed to rain all around them. Apparently, at some point Friday, that freeze line dropped to 700' and a little further south...

Just one of those little quirks of weather that I enjoy...

Sunday... - on a still fairly cold day (official high still just 36°) - but nothing like Saturday - I met up again with Steve Wells, this time with his buddy Steve Smart (El Dorado, AR). They were ready!

After a little refresher casting we headed to the Pipeline. Haven't been in there in a while, but we did find fish! Water was 46.5° all day long! Didn't vary a bit in the upper reaches. Might have been cooler further downstream, but we never made it that far.

We dredged the depths with Long Creeks most of the day as the fish seem to be collected towards the downstream ends of the deeper parts of pools. That's been the scenario most of this winter. Steve S landed a really hefty, all be it fairly new, Eagle Lake fish about 13 inches. With clean fins it would have been an easy 14"!

<<<<<   Steve Smart works on releasing one at the Pipeline...

Several fish were hit in the Pipeline though I was a little disapponted with the results there. I expected to find more with the daily generation through the week... Of course, I suppose there might have been more fish in there - we may just not have run into them! There is always that possibility!

We moved on down to the Pasture Pool where there were several fish working steady in the shallows. But, and we found this to be the case up at the Sycamore Run later, they are very VERY spooky! Even though we moved in to positions reasonably well, it looks that quite a serious level of stealth is already required for these fish! The casual feeding stopped almost immediately and with a number of fish visible - we barely got a strike or two!

They clearly did not like our presence! The same thing happened at the Sycamore at the end of the day. Casual feeding - and there were quite a few March Browns hatching throughout the day - shut off just by being there!

But that was the case only the shallow water! In the deep water they were much more congenial. We did have decent action at the Pipeline and really good action at the significantly deeper Spectator Hole! In fact the action there was nearly non-stop for some time! It was generally good fishing overall - just a matter of location, location, location once again!

I'm going to use Steve W for some critical roll-casting analysis here. Mostly becasue he's doing several things very well already, but there were still a couple of details that are keeping him from being very nearly, ahem... "perfect"! I know that's a terrible thing to say about someone... Because, now, the pressure will be unbearable!

This shot shows the first milliseconds of his stroke. You can see that he had the line set up perfectly with the "line to water point of contact" along side him where it should be.

His entire right arm and particularly the wrist are also in just about perfect position (the green lines). The wrist is open as opposed to straight or closed. If only he could have kept those angles fixed!

The position of the rod, at this instant, in relationship to where his hands are tells me a detail. His hands are nearly where they should be to end the stroke, but the rod is just starting to load (I turned the rod blue...) and the line hasn't lifted off the water yet. This - the positions of his hands - shows me that he started the stroke from too far out in front of his body and stroked more forward than downward. This forces him to carry the stroke past what should have been the stopping point.

It also shows one very fine point... There is some slack line between his left hand and the stripper guide. This indicates that his hands were not moving together. That should have been a tight line right there. He's losing a little energy and momentum.

Shot number two is really showing a lot of things! Don't worry Steve - bad AND good things!

First - the hands... You can now see that Steve didn't hold his wrist angle (look back at the open wrist angle in the first shot). He closed it - the dreaded "baseball snap"! This carries the rod tip too far downward - past a favorable stopping point. The result is the downward dive of the leading edge of the travelling line, very evident here.

The bottom side of the leading edge is bellowing downward (red arrow). It should be close to identical to the the top side - the trailing line. This was caused by the rod tip "reflexing" downward rather than forward. (This aspect is clear in the next picture... Here the rod has arleady recovered from the reflex and straightened out again.)

Steve has jumped the line off the water nicely and into the air! It's just that the path was pushed more forward (yellow arrow) rather than to the water (green arrow). You can see that his rod hand is extended outward rather than pulled into the body. It was a relatively nice stroke - just not quite the right direction!

Had he combined the angle of his wrist from the first picture with the green path in the second he would have been just about perfect!

One thing I can say for Steve is that he's pretty consitent already! But here's some good stuff...

The white line from Steve's hand to the red dot is the actual position of the rod on this particular cast. The white line beyond that is the fly line itself! You can see just how far downward the rod tip has flexed (yellow curve) as Steve stopped the rod - which he's done quite well, but again, just not quite the right path...

The bottom of the line's leading edge (red curve) is again opening the leading edge up into more of a balloon which will kill the line's momentum becuase the bottom of the leading edge is going one way (red arrow) - the actual leading edge is going another.

The fact that Steve has extended the rod hand forward has forced the actual cast (white line) on more of an upward trajectory. While that cast was going to straighten out completely and finish quite nicely - it was going to do it somewhere high above the water rather than right at the surface! So close, Steve, so close!

Now here's the super-imposed hypothetical cast... Had Steve been able to maintain his original arm and wrist angles from pic #1 (heavy green lines at his body), then get a more downward path for his hands (green arrow from his ear) the rod would have flexed to a better position (blue rod) to deliver a cleaner leading edge (green fly line) on the same PATH that the hand had travelled - sending the cast down to the water where we all want it to go!

Everybody got that??? Piece of cake, eh?

Thanks, Steve! I hadn't intended to do this when I was taking the pictures, but as I looked at them I saw some things that would be of benefit to everyone! You've now passed the "Can You Take It" casting clinic! For ya'lls information - he did finish the day throwing even better than he was at this particular point! Like I said - these shots were getting so close as it was!

 Back Cast

Friday - January 22

Quite the enjoyable day out with Steve Wells and son, David! (El Dorado, AR) Odd weather though.

For days the forecast was for sunny and 65° today. The early morning started out looking like that was going to be the case! All of a sudden, about 9 AM, what was a cloudless sky suddenly was socked in with low, cold clouds and the temperature was staying in the 40's for much of the day!

Eric Clapton showed up today! Actually that's Steve Wells in the Sycamore Run with one of several fish on! He does resemble ole "Slowhand" though, eh? >>>>>

Fortunatley before the day was done, a bright, warm sun returned!

In the meantime, we got the guys started on some proper casting techniques and then hit the Sycamore Run again as the water was still falling! AGFC loaded a big batch of fish in this week and they are spread out nicely already with the two-a-day high water periods. Some really nice fish in there too! I'd say an average of maybe 12-13 inches!

We worked the Sycamore Run over pretty well - actually, mostly Steve as David made a lunch run to town... He's a growing boy after all - but it was nice to have a little late lunch at water's edge, almost with a rod in hand!

Steve got a pretty good groove going at the run with a Long Creek and had numerous takes, quite a few on and about half a dozen landed in a short time! Oh, the winter fishing here can certainly get one spoiled!

<<<<<   David fights one in the moving water, uh... somewhere in the proximity of, uh... around... The Bridge! Don't tell anybody, though...

Once David was back in the water he had a good number of takes at the bottom of the run, but wasn't quite sticking any! Just one of those days - to that point. Same thing was going on down in the Spectator Hole, but all this time it was still chilly and overcast with that "unstable" effect, I think, coming in to play. Water temperature was 47° by the way!

By then it was time to head downstream. Low Water Bridge is hard to beat on falling water.

The main run under the Bridge gave us plenty of action and some different techniques for the guys to develop - more high-sticking, a little mending and different fly actions! Lots to do, lots to do! Not some bad fish landed there as well! Of course it's a popular place and easily accessible. There's always going to be some folks around there, but it wasn't too crowded, even for a Friday afternoon. Tomorrow might be a different story...

David gets ready to land one of the nicer fish of the day. >>>>>

I was a little disappointed in how the lower part of the shoals fished - hardly a look down below! That was quite surprising, but that's not the first time this season that such has been the case. Some days have been very good down there, others have been pretty quiet. Today was quiet, so we headed back up into the uipper parts of the shoals.

Once you find a concentration of fish, though, you can wear yourself out! A couple of guys were up in the Bridge Hole, literally, with fish on just about every time the fly hit the water. I beleive that would be an example of a "concentration" of fish! Get used to it - at least until May!

We found such a concentration as well in some of the fast water and they were coming up close to the surface to eat Smidges! That's fun compared to dredging deep water all the time! And the fish themselves are more fun in the more aerated parts of the river. More lively!

Saw a few bugs flutter around late in the afternoon, which, as mentioned, turned out to be beautiful - almost toasty! I had on one layer too many all of a sudden when, for most of the day, it was necessary! Have to see what happens with tomorrow since they're now saying a slightly lesser chance of thunderstorms compared to a good chance of showers they predicted yesterday. In fact, just checking again, it's looking like more thunderstorms later in the day and into the night with a big line coming out of the Panhandle region right this minute! Sunday looking good though...

Once again - a great way to spend a January afternoon!

 Back Cast

Saturday - January 16

Well, I had to wait until the Saints got through puttin' the whuppin' on Arizona before I got to work on today's update! I thoroughly enjoyed my day, I can tell ya!

Had a lot of fun for the first half of it with Kent Jantzen and Del Koehn (Bradley, AR) despite the steady and chilly drizzle. After last week it was hard to call it "cold" after all... But it was just about 45° all day and it was drizzling to showering all day.

Kent Jantzen testing out his light line rod, for about the 20th time! Nice fish trying to dig deep into the Spectator Hole after bouncing around a bit! >>>>>

But that's what we have layers of high-tech garments and rain-gear for!

After some intensive casting discussions we stopped in at the Sycamore Run where the fishing was still good, even on the minimum flow of the weekend. Strikes were steady and the fish seemed to be in a good mood.

We fished Long Creeks all day today with the lesser flows and less need to get deep quickly. AND we saw at least one more March Brown pop off today!

And guess what? They're still calling for highs in the 60's all this coming week with five sunny days to boot! That just might get a few more bugs moving! Tomorrow and Monday are looking great - sunny and 66 on Monday!!! Yikes!

Anyway... After exhausting the fish in the Sycamore Run we tested the Spectator Hole today and it really had some fish in it. Both guys were getting hits on every couple of drifts! And a couple of the fish were nice and chunky - pushing the 13 inch class!

<<<<<   Del Kohen has his hands full trying to keep this one away from the submerged log that haunts the Spectator Hole!

Del had one that put on quite the aerial show again! It's easy to forget about cold wet hands when there's fish bumping into your fly regularly!

This was an "educational" session as much as anything for Del and Kent as it was their first time to fish here and we wanted to see some more of the river, and get into a some more techniques (before game time...). So we headed down to Low Water where there was no one to be seen! That surprised the heck out of me despite the weather!

What surprised me even more was the lack of action that we had in the shoals compared to the rest of the week! I speculated that either, on the minimum flow, the fish had headed for deeper water or they had been taken out in numbers in the last 24 hours! Either one is a pretty viable possibility!

But the guys did get to work on some fast water high-sticking and traditional swings and Del did stick one nice fish, but that was it for the shoals. At least the lower part. The guys were going to stick around for a bit and try a little more. I'll be curious to hear from them if they did any better thereafter.

While this is a nice photo of Del landing a fish, I don't want it to sound like I'm picking on him here! This particular picture, is a great bit of education for everyone!

Walk softly, but DON'T carry a loaded gun! >>>>>

He's made one near fatal mistake that I didn't really catch at the time and should have let them know! I didn't see it until I was editing the pictures!

Anyone see it yet?

He's got a "Loaded Rod" in his left hand with a potential bullet in his right!!! Had that fly come out of that fish before he had the hook under control, the loaded rod would have sent that hook deep into a finger! The first fly I ever had in me happened like this, except it came out of a branch rather than a fish!

The lesson - the instant you have that line in your hand, make sure that the line is slack and the rod isn't flexed as you see it here. We got lucky today, Del! Just don't do it again!

 Back Cast

Friday - January 15

Spent the last two days with Gary Dagley and his son, Michael (Cedar Hill, TX) in what turned out to be really nice weather after all! They had been threatening cold showers for yesterday... We had some drizzle early in the morning but finished the day in nice sunshine! Today was even nicer!

Last week - the weather - already seems lke ages ago, but I will say that there was still ice in the woods and on ponds around here throughout Thursday! I guess it was cold or something...

Gary Dagley gets ready to land one at the Couch Hole Shoal. >>>>>

At any rate, Thursday morning we met up at Riverside as the water was still falling out, but there was a rather stiff north wind coming down the streambed and I figured why be in a cold wind if you don't have to! We headed down to River Ridge where there were a few folks and the water was still flowing nicely! At the Little Ledge we had a little bit of action, but not much to get excited about. Water temperature was still 45° after all and the lack of sun in the morning hours wasn't helping.

The fish were just being ornery I think... A few showed themselves and we had a few takes and a couple bend the rods, but not much more than that for a while. But we did get into quite a few back up in the fast water of the Couch Hole Shoal. Michael had a nice one on for a few seconds that just pulled loose. And it wasn't long after that Gary was into a nice fish - I think, pretty much, uh, identical to the one Michael had hit! I'm not saying - I'm just saying...

<<<<<   Michael having fun standing in the fast water of the Factory Site!

Actually several fish were on there and a couple more landed as I recall, but it was time to follow the falling water downstream. Hind's Bluff was a tad busy, as expected, so we dropped down to the Factory Site, where I hadn't been in quite a while. Not a soul around!

While there were fish showing themselves out in Long Pool the water was still a bit high to go out in there so we hit the shoals. Gary got into a few right below the wier and I took Michael down to the "original" Honey Hole. Swinging a B&B Little Mo' Wooly down to the bottom of the fast water did the trick and Michael landed several there. Man! The hits in that heavy water were savage and one just about snatched the rod away from Michael! They can really dig themselves down under that fast water and just about be impossible to move sometimes!

By the way, there's at least one big fish - maybe 16" - in the fast water... somewhere... Unfortunately I hit him while I was demonstrating some long distance High Sticking... He's still there, as far as we know.

More fast water for Michael at Low Water Shoal. >>>>>

Back down to Low Water to finish the day and we got into a bunch in the shoals there as well. Michael had some real action for quite a while once he found the right drift. It was hits on every third cast or so I think! After high water the fish are going to be concentrated and when you figure out where that little pocket may be, you can wear yourself out! Location, location, location!

Today we started out at the Sycamore Run while the water still had about a foot, maybe more, to fall out. At first there wasn't much doing, but once the water got just a little closer to normal the fish got going! It's always amazed me that they seem to know that it's, at some point, OK to get cranked up!

Both guys had quite a few in hand and some of the nicer fish of the last couple of days as well! A couple were starting to show some hints of red in the belly fins!

<<<<<   How's that for timing a shot??? This one got aerial for Gary several times!

While there were quite a few fish sloshing around the Spectator Hole we skipped it and headed right for the Pasture Pool where we had the most action of the two days! The water was still flowing nicely and fish were active up and down the pool! Again both guys were into fish on a regular basis with hits coming probably every three or four drifts! Gettin' spoiled!

Michael had on the fish of the day for about four, maybe five, minutes, I'd say! This one was bull-dogging deep in the pool and never came close to the surface where we could really get a good look at him, but I did see a very broad flash on a couple of occasions! Unfortunately, that's all we got to see... Eventually, the big fish just managed to work loose. One out of four out of four... This just happened to be one of the three that get away!

It was also at the Pasture Pool that we saw the fisrt March Brown of the New Year come drifting down the pool! Of course none of the fish have yet to figure out that the thing floating around on the surface is food and the mayfly drifted past us and another fifteen yards down before it finally got off the water! Nice to see a "hatch" other than midges, though, even if it was just one!

<<<<<   Michael shows off a nice one. Check out the jaws and hefty belly of this Eagle Lake strain male from the Sycamore...

We went ahead and checked out the Confluence Hole, but didn't do as much there, just a couple or three fish in hand I think. We had lost track by then and it didn't much matter anymore anyway! The fishing had been pretty decent all day and the guys were just about needing to head sosuthwest!

Everybody caught fish - nobody got hurt - it was a good day!

Things are looking good for next week too! Generation schedule is the same as this week: 4:00 to 10:00 both AM and PM! That is, they are running water from 4:00 AM to 10:00 AM - shut down from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM - running again 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM. High water doesn't get to Low Water Bridge until 6:20 PM! Just about perfect! And the weather is going to pretty decent too! Calling (right now) for Sunday and Monday - Thursday and Friday to be sunny and 60's! Tuesday and Wednesday might be a little questionable, but still highs in the 60's! Can't hardly beat it!

 Back Cast

Wednesday - January 13

Despite the 16° this morning, it turned into a beautiful day of which James and Judy Foster (Monticello, AR) came and took full advantage!

On a historical note - the lows here since Tuesday last week have been: 14°, 15°, 14°, 9°, 5°, 6°, 20°, 21° and today's 16°! Jeeez! And since Saturday the 2nd, the first day that the high was something other than 30's was Monday! Even yesterday it was only 45°! Man, oh, man!

Judy Foster tangles with her first fish of the day at the Sycamore Run! >>>>>

All of which gets us to the nice 53° and sun and 47° water we had today! Unless it gets pulled off again like it did last spring and summer, we should have a very nice cold core in the lake this year!

At any rate, we met up at Riverside this morning and took a look at some casting, threw at a few fish which showed themselves, but didn't cooperate - then headed downstream as the water fell sufficiently.

We got into some fish at the Sycamore Run, but did better in the Spectator Hole. I think the fish have been so cold and hugging bottom as much as they could, you have to really force them to come to a fly! You can entice them to eat the thing as long as it's close enough to get their interest. The key right now is getting a fly right in front of their snouts!

<<<<<   Jim gets ready to land one of the chunkier fish of the afternoon! This one had some "shoulders"!

Once Jim and Judy got the flies where they needed to be the hits came pretty regularly! Most of the fish were smaller there, but they certainly felt the need to get out of the water and into the warm sun I think! There was a lot of jumping form most all of the fish today!

In the Spectator Hole we found a more concentrated group of fish. Seems for the most part they were hanging at the downstream ends of the pools where maybe the water was a little slower and they didn't have to expend so much energy in the cold.

Despite what everyone believes about trout being "cold" water fish, they are much more active in water that's about 60° rather than 40's!

We stayed in there catching fish until it was safe to head down to Low Water where we really got into fish! Jim and Jusy got a lot of "high-sticking" and mending practice here, as well as reading the line on the drifts for takes and working flies in fast water. Not to mention getting plenty of opportunities to practice strip striking and playing fish!

This was a busy place. Neither one had a clue as to how many fish were landed - they had lost count long before the end of the afternoon!

That, by the way, lets one know it was decent fishing...

<<<<<   Jim looks on as Judy brings in another nice fish at the Spectator Hole!

All we threw today were B&B Little Mo' Woolys and Long Creeks, not much reason to mess with much else for us. Jim and Judy had gotten out yesterday for a bit at Hind's Bluff and got a few on Wooly Buggers. The fly, right now, is not all that critical of a factor.

Most of the fish were in the 11 inch class, but here and there we'd come upon something closer to 13"! You can definitely feel and hear the difference. And quite a few fish, particularly away from the stocking sites, are starting to show the signs of having been in the river for a while now. After all, some of the fish stocked back in October are likely to still be around! There's such a difference between those and the fish that were, literally, stocked yesterday, and maybe today as well!

It took two full weeks to get cranked up, but so far 2010 is starting out nicely. Looking forward to seeing the Baton Rouge clan around this weekend! Ya'll get ready for a little bit of diversity for the weather forecasts...

 Back Cast

Wednesday - January 6

Well, I couldn't stand it any more - got cabin fever! I headed out to the river for a little while today just to see what it was like again!

Found fish everywhere I went. Some places were absolutely wrapped up with the critters. Most of the fish I had on were falling into the 12-14 inch class too! And they were just hammering the fly - a B&B Little Mo' Wooly once again, by the way.

The temperature wasn't horrible until the wind blew - that's a whole 'nuther story after all. Out in the sun my thermometer showed 48° - in the shade it was 38° on the other hand. The falling water was a crispy 48°. The fish seemed to be enjoying the falling water too.

The water itself is finally looking a little closer to normal. No longer just plain muddy. Now its relatively clear and more of that familiar olive color. That's quite nice to see again!

I ran into two other maniacs at the Hind's Bluff Access - Kitt Thomasson and Andy Arbridge from Texarkana! Only other people out that we know of! They were having a little bit of action there, but the water hadn't quite fallen out all the way yet. I slipped into the base of Butt Buster Shoal, but as I had found elswhere the fish were holding close to the bottom in the cold water. They're not going to expend a whole lot of energy when the water is still a little high.

I didn't get into fish until I was deeper into the pool. But there I had numerous heavy hits from nice fish once again. They are in the "slashing" mode and either stick hard or not at all!

I checked the inflow temerature from the little creeklet that comes in right there at the access - it was 38°. You can expect that to drop over the next several days and once they shut down for the weekend I suspect you'll see the river temperature get closer to the 30's than 50°. That may slow the fish down a bit.

"They're" still predicting low teens in the mornings and 20's to maybe 30° by Saturday afternoon. The ambient air combined with no generation over the weekend is going to drop the river temperatures to the low 40's at least if not into the 30's! So don't expect the fish to be real happy about it over the weekend. It may not shut them down, but it will slow them down at least!

Sunday afternoon through Tuesday look to be pretty nice. Again, it's amazing how we get acclimatized when we get into prolonged periods of cold and how 45° and sunny feels pretty dog-gone good when it comes back around!

Tomorrow is definitely not the day to be out! Highs in the mid to upper 20's with winds gusting to 35 MPH!!! Stay in - watch the game!

 Back Cast

Monday - December 28

Well I hope everyone had a great Christmas week! We always do and I've got less belt to work with to prove it!

Before heading south for the holiday, though, I did hook up with Gene Wiley and co-worker Meaghan Moeller (both Scurry, TX) last Wednesday before the worst of the rain settled in! We did spend most of the day dodging showers none the less!

After getting some first time casting work for Meaghan we tried to raise some fish around Riverside, but decided to head elsewhere to get out of the cool winds. We went ahead and dropped down to the Hind's Bluff Access where there wasn't anyone around!

With a good flow still dropping out from the morning's generation we settled in towards the bottom of the pool and got into quite a few fish. Gene, who's made quite a few trips here, tried the middle at first, but just wasn't getting much into them. Meaghan was in a better spot initially and was into her first fish on a fly soon!

Sorry guys, but there just weren't any pictures that came out looking like much of anything with all the rain and blur... But Meaghan had several fish on and enough in to get a good feel for what was happening on the other end of the line! We were throwing nothing but B&B Little Mo' Woolys the whole time as the water was still pretty murky!

And that, I fear, is going to be the case for some time to come...

We finished out the afternoon as the showers and thunder started to increase. Feet and hands were cold in the 51° water and wet wind-chill in the 50° air were starting to set in! We were very lucky there wasn't more wind than we had!

I checked the radar before I left that evening for Shreveport and decided not to take the Texarkana route as that would have been worse than what I did have driving south! From here to Lewisville was some of the worst rain that I've ever driven through for that far a stretch! I feared for our water situation here... But at least I didn't get into the tornadic weather that was further west at the time!

I'm afraid Gene and Meaghan had to drive right into that business on their way back to Texas - I haven't heard from him since... How'd it go, Gene?

We had about 5 inches of rain here in town over the following 24 hours into Christmas Eve! I don't beleive what the charts are saying for Narrows Dam because that's only showing 3/10's of an inch for the same time period! However the lake came up from a very comfortable 540.55' while were still fishing on Wednesday SIX feet in the next 24 hours, and still rose to 547.84' today. Of course that's because they didn't let any water go over the weekend despite the fact that the lake was rising to flood stage again.

That kind of ticks me off, because today, when I met Shawn and Christi Smith from Longview TX at 11 AM, the gates were still open - despite the schedule still showing a 9 AM shut-down! And the word I got at the time is that they are going to be running round the clock until Thursday night to get the lake back down! Unfortunately, they could not have let water go much sooner because the flood levels were too high downstream until yesterday evening anyway.

So, that will answer some of ya'lls questions about the water, at least until Friday. Hopefully we won't get any real rain out of what's supposed to happen over the next couple of days and we can have the river back down for this weekend... That should get the lake back down to around 544' by Thursday night.

Didn't do much for us today, though, but to get some extensive casting instruction in! At least maybe when Shawn and Christi return they'll be ready to jump right in and catch some fish!

Since the schedule for this week still isn't reflecting current fact, it's hard to say for certain that we'll be shut down on Friday as was planned. This weekend should be OK though. Next week (4th through the 8th) is still showing high water 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM and again 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM, with none for the weekend!

Let's hope for a normal and Happy New Year!

 Back Cast

Saturday - December 19

Finally! Back on the river!

Where has the past month gone??? Well, we did go to Houston to enjoy the snow and Angie's (Sandy's daughter) girls play roundball, and then the weather has been just bad enough to not go out if you didn't have to! Cold, cold rain and then - just plain cold!

I got out for a little while yesterday afternoon to get away from tying and rod building for just a bit. Headed down to Low Water for the late afternoon. If ya'll haven't been out in the last two weeks or so, the lake and river are just plain muddy! I've never seen it like this outside of pure storm run-off - and that's about how muddy it is! You can even see it in the pictures!

<<<<<   Nice jumps in the late light and a blizzard of midges! (You can't see them though...)

The lake has been such a mess all year since the epic spring flood (see High Water on the Message Board) to see that... And, maybe as bad, we had a flooded lake and lots of moving water in it right when the leaves were all falling this autumn!

Now the lake is drawn down to normal levels but it's taken a lot of movement to do it. So, even down deep the water is turbid and "messy"! And, of course, that's what's coming through the dam and into the river. We're going to have to have a lot of stable quiet weather for the lake, and river clarity, to get back to normal, I think! Maybe one day this winter...

However, it doesn't seem to bother the fish at all! As I started to mention, yesterday at Low Water I got into fish in all the usual places. You just had to assume they were there and you have to get the right drifts to get the fly right in front of their noses! I wish I knew how well the fish are seeing through this stuff - we can only see maybe a foot! I felt like I was out west in April or May fishing the snowmelt!

Jeremy Thomas with his first fish on... >>>>>

<<<<<   And landed!!!

We also had one of the most awesome midge hatches at about 4:45 to 5:00 PM! I swear it looked like it was snowing. Tens of thousands of midges shining in the late afternoon sun. I wish they had come through better in the picture above - but they are, after all, midges... It's also too bad that the water is so muddy that the fish couldn't see them either or there would have been quite the mêlée I'm sure!

This was also about the time the sun dropped away and the temperature wentr with it! From about 60° to 48° in maybe fifteen minutes. Add a 15-20 mph north wind to that and I had seen all I wanted to for the afternoon!

Today I got out with Jimmy Thomas, (Texarkana, TX) and his son Jeremy (Dallas, TX) - it was Jeremy's birthday present and his first time to throw a fly at a trout! And they picked a great day to be here - a little breezy and a little cool - but rather nice after all!

We saw the three to four inch waves ripping across the Flat at Riverside and decided to go elsewhere! So we spent the mid-day at the Sycamore Run where I can almost always count on busy fish and decent results for beginners! And even though you couldn't see but the tops of rocks a foot down you could "feel" the fish hugging the bottom! And in fact one did show itself as we prepared to step in.

<<<<<   Jimmy hooks into a nice one at the back of the Sycamore Run!

I was prepared with some B&B Little Mo' Woolys - bushy and big in addition Black & Brown! You have to have something the fish can find out in that water! And it's going to have to be moving one way or another! Once we got Jeremy settled in with the casting within reason we got in positions and tried to duplicate the right drifts.

Strikes came with some frequency - if not regularlity! It wasn't too long before Jeremy's line twitched a couple of times - without him doing it! To his amazement, he was hooked up to his first fish on a fly! Happy Birthday!!!

Meanwhile, Jimmy was getting strikes pretty steadily at the bottom of the run! But Jeremy was balancing the hook-up ratio his way as he managed to hook up and land the first two fish that hit him! Remember the "One out of four - out of four" ratio! It wasn't leaving a lot of hook-ups for Dad!

              Jimmy's nice fish of the day... >>>>>
<<<<< And Jeremy didn't do too bad either!

But Jimmy did get in his share of fish, including one really nice one - probably in the 13 inch class! He said it was bigger than anything he had gotten on his previous trip!

We spent the day drifting and stripping in the muddy 49° water and learning to deal with a little breeze! It was a good mix of fishing and revelations! I suspect Jeremy is already planning his return!

Generation is a little funny this coming week with high water Monday through Wednesday 5 AM to Noon then shut down until 4 PM! No generation on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday! Of course most of us will be doing sme thing different for much of that time...

Look close all of you who've been fishing here for 20 years or more... Near to far; Gordon Shaw, Barry Bauer, the infamous long-time Game Warden and Pike County Sheriff - retired - Jerry Jones and his son Joshua! >>>>>

New Year's week looks great with generation 5 AM to 9 AM then shut down again until 4 PM Monday through Thursday. No generation slated for Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Hope the weather cooperates!

The next couple of days are looking nice - then a pretty cold Christmas weekend! Sunny but with lows in the 20's - highs only in the mid 40's! Dress up for it!

it was a "good day" - everyone caught fish - nobody got hurt... Now if the Saints can just do what they need to do tonight it'll be great day!

 Back Cast

Always On The Water - Jeff