far out fishing
the travel blog for faroutfishingtrips.com (and other spiffy fishing stories)
Archive for September, 2007
September 29, 2007 at 9:41 pm · Filed under Texas Fishing
ok, here are some photos from friday, a guide trip i did with Hans Sander of Austin. before i get into the details of the fishing day, i just want to say a few things. back in the mid 90’s when i was working at the Austin Angler, nobody was guiding in the Texas Hill Country. there was a guy by the name of Dan McGrath who did some Llano trips, and Scott Graham who did some stuff on the Guadalupe and Blanco Rivers, and moved on to do more at the coast. but essentially, nobody specialized in Hill Country streams or (guadalupe) bass fishing. i took it upon myself to learn the Hill Country rivers, inspired by the late Bud Priddy himself and my own desire to promote wild, native fishing rather than the putt-putt golf-esque, put-and-take trout fishing we have on the Guadalupe River.
anyhow, during those years, i paid my dues, setting standards for guiding on rivers like the Medina and San Marcos Rivers, to name a few. i regularly guide and fish over 500 miles of water within 2.5 hours of Austin. suddenly, now, everybody and their moms are fly fishing guides, which is cool, i supppose. but this isn’t so much to rag on anyone, just to set the record straight, and to say ‘I REALLY know what the HELL i’m doing’…. Read the rest of this entry »
September 28, 2007 at 1:38 am · Filed under Miscellaneous Fishing
ok, i’m finally back in Texas after 10+ days in Colorado. this first photo isn’t fishing, but it’s me after many hours of driving, in a daze…i like this photo, so i’m going to post it. actually, this was near Llano, Texas, just after crossing the river…
this other set of photos is from Colorado, up on the North Platte River near Walden, Colorado. i was invited by my good client, Hayden Thompson, to come and check out the waters of the North Park Fishing Club. several guys were up there fishing. the river is a meandering meadow stream, running about 80 cfs. very slow shallow riffles and great cut banks, good flat water for dry fly fishing. i think they sell it as wild trout fishing, but i think there were obviously some stocked fish in the river. some of the guys caught some 6-7 pound rainbows that look like the ones you find in the fish market at Whole Foods (small mouths, football shaped bodies and beat-up fins). in any case, for a lot of people, it’s fun to catch them, and i can’t argue against that. for me personally, i like sight-fishing and hatch matching, so that’s what i elected to do. we spent some time fishing a trico hatch (#20 parachute adams did the trick most of the time) and cast to sippers along the river. several were very wild-looking browns and cut-bows up to 20 inches, so i got some fun in there. the guy holding the big fish is Jim Simmons of Denver.
September 28, 2007 at 1:23 am · Filed under Miscellaneous Fishing
so, this is a long overdue blog post. i was up in Denver for the fly fishing retailer NERD convention. anyway, went with my good buddy Tim Romano to the lower Colorado River, i guess we floated 15 miles from State Bridge to somewhere, can’t remember. the river was blown out a few days before, but was clearing and coming down. we decided to goof off most of the day. i threw a huge popper to see if i could get some big browns to eat. no luck. just a few looks, but no takes. fishing was generally slow for some odd reason. maybe it was the 7-8 boats that floated in front of us. we even threw streamers and only got a few small fish to the boat. i even went as far as to throw SOFT PLASTIC crawdads and small SPINNER BAITS on a fly rod just as a joke.
highlight of the day was cooking 1+ lb ribeyes with mesquite charcoal at our campground. the country around the river is all sagebrush and juniper, so generally it’s tough to get a good fire going, unless you buy firewood. we solved that problem by raiding a BEAVER’s den for wood during the float! the next day, i took off up north to the North Platte to meet some guys and fish. (more on that next post). turns out Tim fished the next day by himself wade fishing another part of the river, and hammered the trout. go figure… oh, PHOTOS BY JOEY LIN and TIM ROMANO…
September 19, 2007 at 10:20 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous Fishing
ok, i know this is a b.s. post, but i’ve been busy up here in Boulder, Colorado. actually, had the annual convention in Denver, the fly fishing retailer expo. basically a fishing nerd convention. just kidding, but it was good to see friends in the industry that i’ve known for years. Sage has a new bass fly rod out there that’s awesome. other than that, not much else.
staying with friends here in Boulder. these photos are not really of fishing, but we were goofing around today on Boulder Creek right in town. we really just got out of the truck to take a look and see if there were any fish in the creek and some weird pond next to it in this park right in town. turns out we saw lots of small bass and started catching and throwing hoppers in the water (there were grasshoppers everywhere). in the creek, a nice trout actually munched one of the hoppers. i was with my friend Tim Romano of Angling Trade Magazine, who also helps run Field and Stream’s blog HERE. we actually went back to his house to get cameras and a rod. didn’t catch anything, but ended up casting at prairie dogs (no hooks) in the park next to the creek. and here’s a photo of a frog that jumped on my line. ok, i think on friday, we’re really going fishing…PHOTOS BY TIM ROMANO.
September 10, 2007 at 2:26 am · Filed under Bahamas Fishing, Photo of the Week
ok, this is from a few years back. this is Tee, a guide at Bair’s Lodge in South Andros. i think this is somewhere back in Little Creek. this was about a 6 pound bonefish that i had caught and released. as the tired fish snaked away slowly, i noticed a small shark following 50 feet behind, obviously sensing a weary fish even from that distance. the bonefish headed toward a small creek inlet where a minute later, the water erupted. as soon as i looked back over, a pool of blood clouded the water, and this half of the bonefish surfaced. Tee quickly moved over to fetch the remains and took it home to eat. bonefish are supposedly good to eat, but full of bones (not as bad on the bigger ones). the guides don’t kill them often, so i guess this was a rare ‘treat’.
September 7, 2007 at 1:04 pm · Filed under Texas Fishing
hey, so this is from last week. i was out west of Austin on a 17,000 acre private ranch that has an awesome creek that are headwaters of a major river system. i’ve promised to keep it secret where i was. not really important, besides that it was a pristine piece of property. lots of deer and turkeys all over. fishing was great, lots of largemouth bass in the 2-3 pound range, i only fished briefly for an afternoon, but it was clear that there had to be much bigger bass there. they have the creek dammed up in places, otherwise there’d be no depth to the water. it’s all spring fed. the springs were so strong that they were bubbling up with turbulence in some of the pools. these are photos of mainly some cliffs. i like cliffs. oh, and that waterfall was in the main river. it’s about a 5-6 foot drop. a very few amount of people will know where this is. cheers.
