December 12 - David Cannon and his
wife Stephanie came down and fished the Gardens today. David is working
on a book about Georgia fly fishing and needed some photos for the
section on Callaway. Happily, he got some good ones with some beautiful
weather and nice big trout.
December 11 -
Fished Callaway today with Brad and his son,
Walt. Walt wore the old man out all morning long, but Brad closed the
gap in the afternoon for a late near-tie finish. Here's one of Walt's
fish...
November 26 -
Fished the Callaway Gardens trout today with
Bonedog & EE from the NGTO board. The trout were willing to cooperate on
a really beauttiful day. Here's one (about average in size - no,
really!) that ate a big #1 white zonker.
October 26 -
Oh, my! I went to Mobile, Al, this
weekend to do a casting clinic for the local fly fishing club. We had a
great time on Saturday, casting all day out a the beautiful Japanese
Gardens there. Then on Sunday, one of the members, Tom D, took me out to
the Biloxi Marsh to hunt some reds. We found em! If you've heard the
stories about this place and they seemed too good to be true, they
weren't!!! This one was 30# on the boga; we saw `em bigger. Thanks Tom.
Tom doesn't guide there (though he sure
could), but the man to call to get some of this is Jack West. He comes
highly recommended from Tom, and we saw him out there and stopped to
chat for a while. Turned out I've known him for years from the FFF
conclaves. Anyhow, contact me and I'll get you his phone number - you
won't be sorry.
October 11 -
I've been pretty lax in updating, but this
one had to go up. This picture of Zach with a big bream may look a
little familiar as (I think) he's shown up here once before...
...but his ole man has been on here with big
bream and bass for , I guess, over 10 years. Notice the resemblance....
September 12
- Fished today with Stack Scoville,
his brother Steve and their pal Rick. Some of you may recognze Stack's
name as he's a
world-famous Atlantic salmon fly tyer. I was a little ashamed to
have him fishing my plain ol' RLD's, but Rick said they were fine as he
landed this giant shellcracker.
August
- It's been a rip-roarer of a month.
Flint fishing has stayed good with excellent numbers and good size fish.
Also had a couple of days when the carp were thick on the mud flats at
West Point Lake.
Callaway has been pretty reliable, with good
numbers of bream on the RLD fished slow and deep.
Also got to attend the TFO annual meeting near Lefty's home in MD - 3 great days of casting and
learning from some of the best, including "the belly brigade" below, Lefty Kreh,
Mike Kinney & Bob Clouser).
July 17 - On the Flint today with
Carlton and Alex, we found the water up a foot or so and moderately
stained. We headed up one of the feeder streams and found clear water -
apparently the rains over the weekend had been way upstream on the river
and were just hitting, but the feeders had already cleared. Some of the
bigger bass had moved up for the clear water as we found
several, with Carlton getting the big fish.
July 8 - Coming back to town from a
new direction last week, I passed a shallow flat off West Point Lake
that I used to fish for carp. So today I had a free day and decided to
see if the carp there still wanted to eat. `Turned out that a couple of
the small ones did, but then I hooked up with this guy.
What a white bass was doing up in this water I have no
idea, but he ate that RLD with no hesitations.
June 30 - We're in New Jersey on
vacation. Yeah, I know......."why on earth go to NJ for vacation"???
Well, it's a family thing and we're at the eastern shore. And the
inshore fishery is beautiful. First morning there I found the shad while
hunting the stripes. They ate the 3/0 whistler.............
June 19 - The weather has heated, but
the fishing is holding on. At Callaway, we're still doing good early and
late in the day; midday gets pretty warm.
I love the Flint this time of year -
wet-wading helps you stay cool all day. The water is low and clear and
the fish are perhaps a bit smaller, but it's great fun fishing the
smaller technical water. It can be different though - the tactics that
worked when the water was high need to be adapted.
June 3 - `Had a Flint trip cancel
today, but I was ready for the river - so I just went and fished by
myself. Somebody missed a good one as it was great - shoalies,
redbreasts, shellcrackers, plus a lonely bluegill. A few hit the
stealth bomber, but most of `em came on a black RLD. The
Rubber-Legged Dragon, aka the
RLD, is a favorite of mine - it's caught a lot of different species
including trout and carp. But until today, it had never caught one of
these..............
May 31 - The FFF-SE fly fishing show
has been happening at Callaway Gardens for the last 3 days, and boy did we have some fun.
After the closing reception Saturday night, I asked our special
guest, Steve Rajeff, if he was interested in a little fishing. In spite
of a pre-6am scheduled departure tomorrow morning, his face lit up like
a little kid, and in effect he echoed my favorite Flip Pallot line,
"This is how I look when I'm ready.".
We grabbed the driftboat and hit Robin Lake
as the sun went down. Definitely a guide's dream -
the best caster in the world in the front of the boat effortlessly
firing bullets with my stealth
bomber. Of course the phenomenal casting was no surprise
May 25 - The Flint just gets better
and better as the water drops and clears. `Fished it today with Gary L
from Kennesaw. First time for Gary, but he timed it right - got plenty
of fish and the spider lily bloom too...
May 14 - Flint fishing is fine these
days............
May 3 - Fished Callaway Gardens
yesterday & today with the boys from NGTO - a lot of fun as always,
though the fishing was a little tough. In spite of the fronts
coming through, we found some topwater bream and some bass chasing
damsel nymphs up in the weeds.
April 22 - `Got a busman's holiday
today - decided, just for a change, just to go fishing. `Found a few of
those striped fish........
April 21 - It's that time of year,
and the fishing is turning on all over. The Flint is on between the
rains, the Hooch stripes are moving upriver, and the big bream and bass
are doing it on the Callaway Lakes. Rex and Joel spanked `em good
today - below is Joel with a giant shellcracker.
April 19 - Kevin's wife had called me
in December to get a Christmas gift for Kevin, a striper fishing gift
certificate. She said he really wanted to catch something besides those
small stocker trout on a fly rod. Today he got his wish on the Hooch
above West Point. The first one busted him off on the hit as it almost
yanked the rod from his hand. The second one popped him on a hard run
across the current. The third one didn't....
March 29 - The fishing has stayed
good at Callaway all month long, with big trout eating everything from
#22 midge pupa to #4 buggers.
Runoff from the rains have kept us off the
Flint most days of the month, but today and yesterday I had two good
days. Dwight and his son Matthew, plus Tom (all from Mobile) joined me
on the river. It was still a bit high, but all three anglers got their
first looks at shoal bass. Here's Matthew with one of his.
March 9 - Fished at Callaway today
with Rodney D. from Birmingham. Started off slow and cold, but Rodney
was soon into the trout. He billed himself as something of a novice, but
that may have been sand-bagging. With my 4 wt TiCRX and a 150 grain
Teeny head, he was adding a slick little "strip-tease" (a la Gary
Borger) to his retrieve and boated the fine rainbow shown below. And the
strip-tease continued to work all day.
February 26 - It's been a
rop-roarer of a month - lots of fine trout at Callaway and a
precious few stripers on the Hooch and over in Alabama in a
couple of spots. But for me the highlight was a coastal NC
road trip that mixed visiting TFO dealers (my new job) with
doing a casting clinic for the Cape Lookout Fly Fishing
Club. Capped the trip off with a trip on the brackish Neuse
River with Capt. Gary Dubiel, owner-operator of
Spec Fever
Fishing Guide Service. You've probably heard of Gary and
all the good things they say are true - on the heels of a
hard cold front and with some heavily-stained water, Gary
put me on striper, redfish, and largemouth bass, all before
lunch. Call him!
Jan 12 - Fishing the
trout at Callaway has been gang-busters this year - today
with Janet & George from Macon. They are usually fishing
stripers on the Hooch with me in January, but with no water
and few fish there we decided on the Callaway trout. And
these folks caught trout as big as some pretty good
stripers, including this big kip-jawed male that Janet
landed.
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