Friday, June 29, 2012

A Nice Day for a Float

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Yeah right , maybe if you like 104 degree afternoon temps and a thirty mph South wind that makes it feel like you're stationed inside of a furnace duct. Oh well , it was the only day I had to work with this last week so you just make do sometimes. The plan was to head to a local river that drains into an even bigger river and try my luck once again with hooking up a gar.
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 I couldn't find any able bodies that were willing to join me (wonder why?) so I loaded up the boat and hit the road on my own. If you've been following along you know that I got out a couple times last summer on this same river and tried to catch my first flyrod gar , unsuccessfully I might add.
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Turn the page a year and at the end of the day the results were unfortunately the same. A lot less water in the river this year and I only saw a total of three gar the entire afternoon , didn't get a fly in front of any of them.
I did try out a new gar fly given to me by a fellow Drakian here recently , this one utilizes a treble hook instead of nylon rope for the business end.
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 The thing looked fantastic in the water , great action and suspended at just the right depth to keep it visible. Definitely a winner and I'll be back out giving it another shot as soobn as I get the opportunity.
The bright point in the afternoon was having the company of three bald eagles for almost the entire float , an adult and two juveniles.
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 With no one else on the river but myself they didn't seem to mind me too much and went about their business as if I wasn't there. The juveniles were constantly vocalizing every time "mom" flew off downriver to scout out a new fishing spot , soon after they'd follow and when I rounded the next corner they'd all be sitting in a tree branch together.
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Pretty cool I thought , I've seen lots of bald eagles over the years but never had the opportunity to watch a family of them like that. I got a couple of shitty pics from my P&S camera but they stayed just far enough away to never allow a good in-focus shot.
Even with the lack of fish and almost unbearable heat , at the end of the day I was still glad I made the trip. You just can't have experiences like that if you're sitting home on the couch....
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6 comments:

  1. I'd of gone with you at 104. People tell me when I say I fish no matter what that "yea, but yours is a dry heat." OK, it is, but I still am out there with no one until it cools. Nice looking water! Cool flies also. As many baby fish are aquarium fish, gar for one that will out grow a tank, I'm surprised we don't have some of the fish you do as well. Next time you'll get them!

    Gregg

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    1. Unfortunately there's nothing dry about our heat!
      You know what they say , if at first you don't succeeed....

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  2. Well at least it's not hot! You'll get em next time and if you don't I'm sure you will the time after that.

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    1. Nah , not at all!! You know how I like a good challenge , I'll get one of them sooner or later.

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  3. With temps like that it's time to go inside and tie flies. Then it's grilling time.
    Keep cool.

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    1. I have to somewhat agree with you there. Unfortunately it's only June and we still have two maybe three months worth of this weather left. I'm not sure the wife could stand me if I didn't fish until it cooled off!!

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