Beer, Fishing and One of My Fly Boxes.

Oh...How hard is life for me, your fearless potentate of panfishing prowess?

Just thought I'd take a break from work to make a post about a couple of my favorite subjects: Beer and Fishing.

Just say that again..."Beer and Fishing".....The way it cascades off the tongue. I think I might actually start signing letters that way:

Dear Somebody Jones,

Congrats for whatever it was you were doing that I decided to use as an example in my faux-letter!

Beer and Fishing,

Jonathan

Ok, I have had my joy-seizure of the day. Here is a bunch of beer I tried recently. All of which I liked alot. Even the New Belgium Ranger (which i sincerely did not want to like) was pretty good. The Turbo Dog by Abita was my favorite.

Emalie went to our church pond last friday afternoon for about 30 minutes. Had fun, caught fish:

What? Don't you take your chihuahua fishing?!

And since a few people have asked me, here is a picture of one of my fly boxes. It holds all my "bream" flies, except for closuers and poppers.

Hope everyone is enjoying the wonderful weather....more posts comming soon!

Paluxy River, Dinosaur Valley State Park

Whew...
This last week has been extremely busy with work, Texas Historical Foundation goings on, and getting a new car (more on that later).

Sunday morning I roused Emalie and the girls and dropped them off at her mothers house, before heading to Glen Rose to hit up the Paluxy.

I got in the water at 9:30 am and got out around 4Pm. It was a long dag, full of fish, beautiful river, and the occasional slip and fall.


Nothing like a stretch of river all to yourself...

I have fished this area quite a bit and I always manage some nice long ears from the deeper part close to the far bank.

Male Longear with extremely blue fins.

Check out that pattern!

It was good to have the 6wt back, though way to heavy for the long ears, it really helped to cut through the brisk wind.

Green Sunfish
It rained rather recently so the water was high, and as I moved downstream the current picked up and I came across many small riffles and mini rapids.

At this point the fish started to get a little larger, but not by much. I didn't catch a fish over a 1/2 pound, which was kinda disappointing, but I made up for it in volume of bites and the beauty of the Park.

Spotted Bass

Throughout the day I used a series of poppers, small woolyboogers, bone minnows and nymphs.



This was the only Bluegill I hooked



It was a great trip, and I caught a couple dozen fish!

Last Few Days....

I had a request to post some info on the flies and the rigging I use when I am targeting bluegills and crappie. So I wanted to take a few moments to explain my set up. I originally posted this on the Texas fishing Forums bluegill/sunfish board:

I generally fish a popper dropper rig that I up-size or down size depending on what I am targeting.I will use a foam spider in a size 8 hook, on a 9ft leader, with a 3 foot segment of 3x fluorocarbon tied to the bend of the hook, ending in a nymph such as a halfback, hares ear, or electric blue north fork nymph. I sometimes catch 2 fish at once on this rig.If I am trying to target a mixed bag of bass and larger bluegills I will make the popper a size 10-8 popper, such as a Boogle Bug, with a 3 foot section of 1x fluorocarbon ending in a size 6 Clouser Minnow, or larger nymph. Its important that the leader is mono, not fluorocarbon, I find the flouro sinks too fast and messes up the popping action of the indicator. The idea is that the first fly, the popper, acts as a strike indicator for the dropper, usually a nymph or small streamer. If that is not working, or the fish are really deep, I generally have a 9 foot leader of fluorocarbon ending in a Clouser, shad colored, or a silver Bully's Blue Gill Spider. All of which you can find on breambugs.com

A yelllow Boogle Bug popper and a Bone Minnow, "popper/dropper" rig:

Small Garland bass caught with a Crappie Fly (available at breambugs.com)

Brian Davis, whose blog you can find in my blogroll, was at the pond when we arrived. We chatted, traded flies and had a good time.

Last night I went to Stonebridge Lake and managed a few bream, including this nice Redear, as well as a bass. I hooked what felt like a 3lber, but she broke off at my feet!

Also caught another sad turtle!

I just bought a new FJ CRUISER, I'll post pictured of the BREAM'MOBILE when it arrives....

New Hole

I found this spot using google earth recently. Its about 20 minutes from my house, located in a neighborhood in garland. It is a pretty unique pond. very blue water, pretty good clarity. The pond seems to be rather deep. It looks like a small limestone quarry that was allowed to fill in. They installed a fountain in the middle, I guess to keep the water circulating, because there is no flow in or out, as far as I can tell. I cought a a few sunfish, and this crappie. Intersting place I will be going back too.


I have some good trips coming up:
The Llano, the San Saba, the colorado and some private water on the weekend of May 1st.
May 15-16 will see me and the better half down in the Austin area. I plan for us to visit to Comal, the Guadalupe and possibly Lady Bird Lake. A few weeks later on the 28-31st we will most likely be staying at a bed and breakfast on the Llano. As summer arrives we will also start to make some trips to the Paluxy, Bosque, Nolan and Brazos. This year is shaping up to be great.

Great weekend.

Between going to the zoo, craft fairs and creepy O-temples, Em and I have been fishing up a storm.

On saturday night we met up with fellow poster from warmfly.com, Brian Davis, whose blog you can find in my blogroll, at the north Garland pond I have been visiting lately. We fished for a while and discovered a new pond nearby that has some white crappie, bass and blue gills. Looks very promising.

On sunday night Emalie and I stopped by the north Garland pond for a couple final casts before home and I caught this chunk. Bet you can't spot my secret to big bluegills?

Emalie caught this fella at the new pond, the best fish at the new pond...

Lucky 13

Last night was a blast. 13 bass. Another 3 or 4 throw the hook. All within an hour and a half. The ever shrinking Garland pond is HOT. I was using a popper dropper rig on the 4 wt. Black foam spider as the popper, swithing between a blue north fork nymph and a minnie deciever for the dropper.


Popper dropper rig! Two at a time!


2lb+ !



Way fun!

April 5th and 6th at Shawnee Park

Emalie and I made a couple visits to Shawnee Park earlier this week. Other than fighting galeforce winds and trying to avoid sticking a child with out back cast, we had a good time.

Caught a number of o-k bluegills and pumkinseed, many smaller ones, a single nice green sunfish and a couple small bass.


Nice pumpkinseed


Great color

The upside down crawdad strikes!

I saw this fish leave the weeds and hit about 2 feet from my foot, guess the upside down crawfish is convincing...

Bluegills and coupon sheets

The batman fly~




This afternoon we will probably head to Garland again...

Tight lines!

April 1-5th

Easter weekend and the days leading up to it have been good to us. The weather has been great, the Bluebonnets are popping up everywhere, and the too-short Texas spring is gaining momentum. The last few days have seen us busy with family, fishing and lots of food.

April 1st: Shawnee park, Plano
My friend Sterling showed me this park originally, and though he caught a number of bass and a crappie or too, I had only managed very small, almost stunted bream. On April fools day I figured I would give it another shot and I am glad I did. Ended up having a good time and caught 7 fish, a couple of which were small Bass. It was extremely windy, but from my position near a cement pipe I was able to make some ok casts along side some lilly pads.





On Friday we woke up and headed out of town in a thunderstorm. Didn't get to fish at all, unless you count a few casts into the Neches on the eastern side of Chandler as a fishing trip....(for the record I did catch a green sunfish!)

Friday evening we spent with family and went to Walmart.....


Saturday we woke up at 6 and drove out to Lake Fork, stopping by J and J Marine to pick up the 15 foot bass boat I rented for the day. Boats or all kinds have their own unique frustrations. I think from now on I will probably rely on friends who know what they are doing, or invest in a small Jon boat of my own....ok onto what I will call "Triumph and Tragedy!"


We used Clousers most of the day, sadly we only caught two small bass, which is a sight better than being stabbed in the eye with something pointy.
Bass#1


Bass #2

As for the Tragedy previously mentioned....I broke my lovely Helios 6wt and had to make due with Emalie's 4wt Clearwater, while she used the TFO 3wt. I snapped the Helios ppicking it up, not realizing it was wedged underneath the casing for the trolling motor. I was proud of myself that I didn't start dropping F-bombs! I Already talked to my friedn Shawn at Orvis in Dallas and he said I will have it back good as new in about 3 weeks. All in all, not a bad time, but i think I will use a guide from now on.


We left Lake Fork around 3 o'clock, thinking we would get a head start on getting cleaned up for dinner that evening, but on the way home we took a small 2 hour detour to a city park we passed while going through Lindale, called Faulkner Park. What a blast, besides the 40 or so bream Em and I caught, I managed 7 Black crappie. non of them where what I would consider keepers, but on a 4wt they were a lot of fun! This was the first time I have ever caught black crappie, so that was a treat in and of itself.



the black crappie were a lot of fun, half the time they took my foam spider rather than the hare's ear i was using as a dropper.

small but fun...

Pale Face v. Crappie


I am of the mind that even if the fish are small, if you catch enough of them on light gear, you will end up having a good time.

After fishing we made it to my aunts house for Pizza and church on Sunday morning.

"Up from the Grave He Arose!"

After Easter lunch with the fam we headed back to Arlington to pick up Pepsi and Bluebell, stopping for a quick cast or two at Purtis Creek State Park:

I was really excited as I pulled it in, thinking because of the side coloration that i had a GIANT Long Ear sunfish, but after landing I realized that it was actually a nicely colored Red Breasted sunfish. I caught one of these last year in the Llano while fishing outside of junction, but it was so young that it had yet to develop the nice adult coloration and telltale extra long "ear". This was the only fish we caught and it brought a nice close to our weekend.



Tight lines!