A Terrible End to a Great Day of Fly Fishing the Flatlands
Had the chance to meet and fish with Patrick and his brother John on Saturday…
After a few setbacks (my fault, bad at getting places on time) we met at spot #1 to try and tangle up with some longnose gar. Patrick’s had a ton of experience with gar and I was hoping I could finally bring one to hand with him around to give me a pointer or two. Sure enough, we found plenty of surfacing gar and spent a couple of hours giving them a good effort. I managed to checked off my #1 goal for summer, but couldn’t snap a pic in time for proof.
You’re just gonna have to trust me. He came in on what looked like a single thread of the rope fly and slipped out of my hand while I was pulling out the camera. Didn’t miss much with the picture, it couldn’t have been much more than 12″ long, but it still would have been nice to have a shot of the product of quite a few hours of pursuit.
We all had a few strikes, but didn’t have the greatest luck with the tangles. Hope to go back out this afternoon after work to give ‘em another shot now that I have a bit of confidence.
We had two main goals for the day… put me on a gar and put Patrick on a catfish. On to spot #2…
Didn’t take too long and we had accomplished both goals, not sure how many cats he ended up bringing to hand, but it was more than a few.
Bendo
Checkin' one off the list
We caught plenty of bass and cats for a while and when I tried to take a picture of a slab of a crappie…. my great day on the water suddenly became a frustrating one… My Olympus Stylus Tough 8000 WASN’T working.
The lens cover was open, but the camera was off… not a good sign. I could hear the motor trying to work when I pressed the power button, but I wasn’t getting anything but the power on screen. Sure, it’s endured a couple of waist high falls. Yeah, I’ve taken some underwater shots with it. But this issue seemed to come up out of NOWHERE. No junk in the lens to jam the cover, no recent drops, no nothing. Confusing. I bought the camera on April 30 and it’s already broken?? Ouch. Such a big investment. Majorly disappointing. Especially considering I had just bragged on the performance and durability on a few different fishing forums. Should have knocked on wood I guess.
I’m a bit of a pessimist, but I really hope Olympus decides to honor the warranty and take care of the problem quickly. We will see.
I’ll keep you posted on that one… And, let me apologize in advance for the poor quality (1.3mp camera phone) images to come in the meantime.
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Good meeting up with you, Ward. Too bad the gar didn’t cooperate any better.
You should definitely consider checking out that place John and I fished on Sunday. In only 20 minutes or so of fishing, John missed two, I had one on for several seconds before he came off, and then I caught that 46-incher. And there were several bigger than that one.
No worries Patrick… Getting the first one out of the way yesterday was exactly what I needed. Went back this afternoon and had a plenty of strikes and managed to tangle up with a nice 3footer and bring it to hand. I’m glad I got to fish with you and learn a thing or two about gar. We’ll have to do it again…
You end up getting your boar too?
Ward, I just stumbled upon your blog a while back (it was linked on Trout Underground, which I occasionally read). Hope things are going well in Oklahoma. I am digging all the catfish, carp, and Gar love.
BTW, I cannot believe that you fish with the brothers Sievert! This makes me wish I was in Oklahoma right now. I know John is a master of all things Carp.
Patrick, I went looking for my don’t look at the Ark shirt recently only to find that my wife had thrown it away. Glad you are still rocking yours.
For what its worth, the creek that runs along Sorgum Mill rd just east of Portland has a deep hole with a lot of Gar in it (at least it did 8-9 years ago). Probably not much room to cast though.
Haha… Blake Cunningham…
Man, everybody’s telling Ward about the Sorghum Mill gar hole…
Glad you got another one, Ward. We never saw any piggies, but oh well. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
Blake… Been forever, great to hear from you. where are you these days?? You’ll have to let me know when you’re going to be back around here, we should chase ‘em down and catch up some.
Sounds like I need to put this little creek on the list to go check out asap. Has quite the rep.
It has been a while. I am in San Carlos, Ca, which is, unfortunately, quite far from most of California’s better fishing opportunities. I am actually going to be in OK next weekend for the first time in almost a year. Its extremely doubtful that family obligations will allow fishing time, but I will let you know.
I wouldn’t get too excited about the Sorgum Mill hole. There are probably still gar there, but not in a location where they would easily be targeted with a fly rod. When I was in high school, we used to catch channel cat there and would occasionally hook (but never land) gar in the really deep hole next to the bridge.
Husky has actually been able to do some fly casting into that hole. He hasn’t caught one yet, but he did get a strike there. He said the casting hasn’t been the problem, just the catching.