TheOkieAngler.com

All the cold weather, iced over ponds, and busy days have been giving me a bad case of cabin fever. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been having a great time trying to learn a few skills with my new toys from Christmas…

It's a work of art (and a fine piece of machined fly tying goodness)

…but I was almost starting to feel bad for myself — sitting around with a pile of newly tied flies, but not so much as a fish to show for it in 2010. Who am I kidding, I could sit in front of that vise for hours upon hours and never get bored, but I really was itchin’ to get the new year’s skunk off my back.

I worked hard last week convincing my buddy Josh that he needed a trip to the river about as badly as I did, and after some successful sweet talking with his wife and my fiance, we both got the green light. Game time… things finally falling into place for a prime winter weekend on the Lower Mountain Fork river.

We got down to Broken Bow a little later than expected (I was a slacker and didn’t gather my gear the night before and we had to battle fog for the majority of the drive).  By the time we got there it was raining pretty steadily, but we weren’t ready to set up camp just yet… It’s never too late to hit the water.

So we pulled into the parking area just after midnight and geared up…

Had a few four legged friends watching us as we made our way to the spot, their glowing eyes were everywhere.

Thinking about bolting...

curious why we were out in the rain...

We didn’t have much (read: any) luck swinging any of the black or olive wooly buggers I had tied up. I was pretty hesitant to fish something I hadn’t tied up myself (I really wanted to catch my first fish on a fly I tied), but I finally gave in and tied on a store bought zonker. Good choice.

Scored a small bow pretty quick and then hooked into something heavy a little while later. Ended up with a frustrating LDR, but the blood was pumping again. A few casts later I hooked into another heavy one, and thankfully this time it was hooked well. I thought it was a nice one, but then again… when a fish hammers a swinging streamer they all feel nice. Then the acrobatics started, the doubt was gone…just hoped I could get it in.

what a chunk

Had a lull in the action for a while and the numb toes/soaking rain combo sent us back in the direction of the car and camp.

We got up and started fishing after 8 on Sat… put Josh on some water he hadn’t fished yet and he got into ‘em quick. Think he had one to hand before I had a fly tied on.

Nice start to the day

It was a great area with a lot of fun water to work… I decided to get in on the action and pulled in my first fish on a fly I tied myself.

victory

There was a lot of fun water and I just enjoy fishing with the bluffs as a backdrop… nice place.

Josh workin' a run

Josh on another nice run

We caught a nice mix, a few small ones and a few nice ones… but one really stood out from the rest. Hard to be sure, but I’d bet he was born in the river. Rather catch one of the ‘wild’ ones than an above average stocker any day.

okie'bow

Got pretty hungry and decided to head back to town for some food and fish z3 while were were down there. Spent our time at the Rereg dam. Took us a little bit to find ‘em, but the action was pretty quick for a while.

Josh puttin it on a nice one

well done (click to see larger image, shows up pretty small)

I even managed to fool a few nice ones on the unproductive buggers from the night before.

rewarding

After catching enough to satisfy we headed back to the park to fish the spillway Creek from about 430 to dark. Didn’t have great success and only brough a few to hand. They were small and pretty unnoteworthy, but fun nonethless. The rain finally stopped and seemed to slow the fish down too. Or maybe we were just getting tired?? Who knows.

After fishing hard all day we didn’t really have it in us to get back out that night. The rain picked up again and the whiskey made it hard to get out of the ol’ sleeping bag.

We fished a little more on Sunday morning… but a few responsibilites at home made us call the trip a little short. Missed out on a perfect partly cloudy day with mild winter temps (mid 50s!?!), but at least the ladies were happy, ha. Gone are the days of fishing without responsibilties hanging over our heads…

getting into the groove

Sure wish we had more time out there… kinda felt like we had to rush to get all the fishing in. Had to make up for all the missed weekends the past few weeks. Need a long weekend or a midweek vacation to slow things down!

Had a hard time coming up with a title for this one… but definitely (and thankfully) a change of pace from the last post

**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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