TheOkieAngler.com

What a weekend…Took from work on Friday off so I could head down to Dallas with Reese and her parents to take part in the Red River Rivalry action (OU/TX game). We got in Thursday night and found out that our hotel room had been given away… awesome.

It had been a long day at work getting things squared away for Friday and road trips, even in the ~4hr range, are always tiring. The last thing I wanted to hear was “we don’t have a room for you,” but it turned out to be a good deal. They put us up in a different hotel for the night and then put us up in a “villa” when they brought us back the next day. Saved some $ and got a sick upgrade, not bad.

Woke up Friday to a beautiful day. Low 60’s, sunny, no wind… The ladies were going to spend the day doing some shopping, and considering that malls are probably my least favorite place on the planet, I figured it was a good opportunity to try and get in some time on the water.

I had scouted out some spots (God bless google maps), but after consulting with the King of rough fishing in the Lone Star State, I discovered the spots I had been thinking about were posted no-fishing. Whoops.

Would have probably ended up arrested (or at least heavily fined) if it wasn’t for Dave, but instead, he put me on a killer spot. It was silly how good this spot was, not kidding, silly.

Within the first half hour I missed two definite takes. Was borderline frustrated and mad that I had spooked a couple spots holding nice pods of fish, when I noticed a gulping mouth come out of the vegetation a few feet directly in front of me. It wasn’t even fair… a little dap dap dap, and the skunk was off my back.

No chance

I had developed a small gallery of on-lookers on their smoke break and not wanting to give anyone any ideas for after work activities, I moved downstream for a bit to check things out. Promptly botched a hookset and spooked another group of fish and hunted around unsuccessfully for a bit before heading back upstream.

Ran into a spotted gar parked in the middle of the creek and gave it a good effort, but couldn’t manage to get its attention. Literally dragged the fly across his nose at one point, and the only response was a little flick of the tail and a slight change of direction.

Look in the middle...

Tired of getting “the finger” from the gar I moved upstream some more and hit the jackpot. Carp were feeding everywhere I looked, and close. They were burying themselves in the junk and were going to town on whatever was inside. Stripping the fly in/around all the junk what impossible (at least for me), so I resorted to casting the fly on top of the junk, and then just vibrating the line to give the fly a bit of life. Did the trick. Saw a nose move up around the area I thought my fly was and set the hook…

Had a great time “trying” to steer him away from all the trouble around and managed to get him in pretty close. Tried to scoop him in the net when he gave the standard “you think I’m tired, but I’m not… I’m gonna go on another run” to me… and snapped my rod before I even knew what was going on.

####… Really??? Again?? Another broken rod? I feel like I JUST had it repaired. I ended up pulling him in by hand… just had to get a shot of the fish responsible for the breakage.

Sage, get ready for another warranty claim... sorry, really I am.

Had to call it a day… really wish I would have packed a spare rod, it was a crazy good spot. Definitely motivated to find something similar in my own backyard. If you’re trying to get into some rough fish in the DFW area, you’ve gotta book a trip with Dave Speer. Stand up guy… knows how to find ‘em and catch ‘em.

Closed out the Dallas trip with the game on Sat. I’m a lot more comfortable on the banks of a creek than in the chaos of the TX state fair on game day, but it was still a hell of a time.

Ocean of orange and red

The game was obviously disappointing, but it was definitely fun and exciting… I think I could make a strong argument for having the best seat in the house.

Literally on the 50, high enough where you can still see everything, but not too high that you miss out.

 Yeah, I may have been sitting next to TX fans, but they weren’t d-bags so it was all good. Woulda been nice to walk away with a W though.

Got home just in time on Sunday to make the drive to Norman… time to close out the weekend with some straight up entertainment!

Opened with the Black Eyed Peas

And closed with the one of the biggest of all time….

U2!

Broken rod, lost game… still don’t think the weekend could be beat. Hell of a time.

Makes Monday awfully rough though. Ward needs a nap. Bad.

**EDIT** The page isn’t loading correctly for me on IE, let me know if you aren’t seeing menus on the left and right. Looks right on firefox as far I can tell. Guess this is the sort of thing that happens when you’re out of the game for over a month.

My apologies for the absence… lost a bit of blogging motivation, but thought I’d make a comeback with a piece on a weekend trip to Broken Bow, Oklahoma to fish the Lower Mountain Fork River in Beavers Bend State Park.

Well, it was another great weekend on the LMF to say the least! Temps were perfect, the trees were starting to turn, the rain stopped (minus some drizzle), and it was generally overcast… Could have done without the crowds, but with zone 2 and zone 3 out of the equation due to generation, that’s to be expected (tough when everyone’s packed into the one remaining zone). To make it even better, Reese wanted to get away and do some camping/relaxing (didn’t feel like doing any fishing) so it was a great chance for us to get away from the grind.

We got in after midnight Friday and after setting up camp and organizing my gear (putting flies in boxes, cleaning lines, etc) I was too tired to get out and do any night fishing like I had planned on. Woke up in the morning, got the signal from Reese that she wanted to sleep in,  and decided to start the day on the Evening Hole (meaningless to some of you, but more on it here).

Fished the Evening Hole for a little bit (unsuccessfully), but I’m a fan of hopping around and the EH was PACKED (sort of like it was this day) so I took off to cook some breakfast for Reese and make the move to the Spillway Creek.

Lots of people were around, but I love the Spillway because there’s always unfished productive pocketwater. There’s ALWAYS a way to escape out there. I didn’t catch a ton of fish that morning, but the ones I did catch were all quality size. Most were just about the length of the opening of my net.

Fiesty Little Pellet-head

Nice colors on them though..

A bit shy

But a couple fish that were truly big worked their way into the mix, and MAN were those fun. Managed to keep one from coming unbuttoned (a fun challenge on a 2wt in strong, quick water!). Definitely a PB on the 2wt.

Tough glare, beautiful fish

Big fish on small flies (#20 red zebra midge) and a small rod, sort of thing that makes it hard to leave! Who says Oklahoma doesn’t have nice fish anyway?

We spent a little time relaxing after lunch out at the Old Park Dam (start of zone 2).

Lots of water. Lots and lots of water

Ended up fishing a different area of the Spillway Creek that afternoon… Not much success. Couldn’t make it work… fished a lot of FISHY spots, but couldn’t get ‘em figured out. Had one chomp on my strike indicator, so I tied on a stimulator and he smashed it pretty good. Wasn’t big, but it’s always nice to mix it up and bring one in on a dry. Happened to be the only fish I caught the entire afternoon too. Almost walked face first into this monster when I was trying to scramble off the trail down to the river… Obviously he parked himself head high right in the middle of the opening to the most convenient way down.

Marbled Orb Weaver?

Closed out the day by picking up a couple of ribeyes from the frontier general store. We got the last two, and they were tasty, but really fatty. Might have been more fat than meat… but I chalk that up to only having the last two to choose from! We brought some wine back with us from Napa (that was the tail end of the Yosemite trip I posted about a while ago) and paired with the steak it was solid.

Don’t know if it was the wine (or the post-wine bourbon), but I set my alarm for 12:30am to see if I could track down some browns below the spillway dam and somehow didn’t manage to wake up… whoops. Was disappointed when I woke up Sun morning that I hadn’t done any night fishing, but got over it pretty quickly when I realized the spillway wasn’t too crowded that morning…

Wont be long and the trees will be in full swing

Didn’t catch a ton of fish again, but that made it more enjoyable and each fish more rewarding. I really was hoping to get into some of the browns… but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

Reese was not feeling too good on Sunday… Not sure if it was allergies or if she’s getting sick, but she had a really sore throat and a lot of sinus drainage that wasn’t making her very comfortable (being sick to your stomach in a place that’s out of your comfort zone is the pits…). We packed up camp pretty early and we made one more stop at the Evening Hole (crowds had thinned out some by Sunday) on our way out. Fished under the bluffs for about and hour and had a blast.

Great water

The fishies thought so too. Tied on an EHC/Emerger combo and started to had some success. The little guys were just destroying the EHC.

I vote this one’s an okie’ native (”native” term obviously used loosely)… (and apologies for the foul hook, got tangled with the dropper)

Can't wait for the day that the stream/river is full of these

It was definitely a great time. Good to be back knee deep in cold water and nice to be back on theokieangler.com

NO idea what this post message the page up, but for some reason it does…

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