It’s that time of year again. Scott Morgan of Baldwin City, KS has been busy with his trail cam and has come up with this beautiful photo of a fine white tail buck. Now you guys who are still young enough to climb up into and out of a tree stand get your butts out there and bring home some venison!
Two days on Arkansas’ White river with outfitter Miles Riley of Riley’s Station is like two days in trout fishing heaven. On a recent two-day float I caught Lots of rainbows, one brown and a couple of cutthroats. No monsters but fast and furious action and no crowds. To top it all off we saw two bald eagles and several ospreys.
If you want to go, check out the Riley’s Station website http://www.rileysstation.com .
Why am I always the last to know? After limiting out opening morning at a public dove hunting field east of Clinton, MO my friend Gary asked me to go back the next afternoon. Beautiful field, sunflowers, the doves favorite snack, mowed in strips leaving hunters room to hide in the uncut part. Typical dove hunting weather. Hot, lots of bug spray and sunblock. But the doves didn’t show up. As someone once put it, “If every time you went into McDonald’s somebody started shooting at you, it wouldn’t take long for you to find a new place to eat”.
Gary shot one bird that fell in heavy cover and his Lab pup Cody used his nose and found it. I shot one bird and it fell in the same area but with even thicker cover and Cody couldn’t find it. Oh well…nice afternoon to be outdoors.
Afterwards we ate dinner at Mallard’s Roadhouse on highway 7 west of Clinton. As you would expect, duck hunting decor, wood paneled walls etc. Made us feel right at home. Good service and excellent food. We’ll be back!
You won’t find anything like this in fly shops. It’s a variation of my conehead bunnybou, the bass fly that catches channel cat. Notice the tail material is not a bunny strip. But what is it? Looks like squirrel tail only smaller. Give up? It’s a chipmunk tail. How do you get a chipmunk tail? You’ve gotta be very quick.
I think this will be a productive bass fly but of course the bass will have the final say.
Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing began in 2005 serving wounded military personnel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who were returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then it has expanded nationwide, establishing its highly successful program in Dept. of Defense hospitals, Warrior Transition Units, and Veterans Affairs Medical Centers and clinics across the country.
The PHWFF program provides basic fly fishing, casting, fly tying and rod building classes to participants ranging from beginners to those with prior fly fishing and tying experience who are adapting their skills to their new abilities.
Where do I fit in to all this? I teach fly tying to -and am sometimes taught by – a small group of vets on Monday nights.
Last Monday we had requests for tying instructions on a traditional trout fly, the gold ribbed hare’s ear nymph. I chose a relatively large hook (#12 3X long) because a big hook is easier for beginners to learn on– and because I could see it better.
This fly can be tied weighted or unweighted, in many colors, with or without a bead. It looks exactly like nothing but suggests everything from a mayfly nymph to a scud or sow bug. It gets its name from the original body material: the short fur on the ears of rabbits. They still sell real rabbit ears in fly shops for the purists but I prefer packaged dubbing material.
Once again it’s Tweener Time when you get the rare privilege of viewing a cartoon that is too salacious and degenerate to appear in outdoor sports publications yet too outdoorsy for Playboy, the magazine for the urban male. To understand this cartoon all you need to know is that bucks are male deer and the critters in this cartoon are female deer.
Thanks to my buddy Brent Frazee I had the opportunity to fish Riss Lake in Parkville, MO this morning. Got up at 4 AM to fish early and neither of us caught a decent fish ’til 10 o’clock. We could have slept in!
The fly that did this three pounder in was a #2 black sparkle grub. After he (or she) was released he probably told his buddies, “Don’t bite one of those black things! I bit one and the damn thing drug me away by the lip!”
Brent is outdoor editor of the Kansas City Star , a newly elected board member of the Outdoor Writers Association Of America, and is as pathologically crazy about fishing as anyone I’ve ever met.
Once again it’s Tweener Time. A “Tweener” is a cartoon too outdoorsy for Playboy but too raunchy for outdoor magazines. It’s sort of the anti-Goldy Locks , it’s in between.
Jason Lucas wrote it, right there in black and white. Would he lie to a fourteen year old kid?”Cast your popping bug so it lands softly between the lily pads, let it sit for as long as you can stand it, then twitch it a little and hang on to your hat”
That was 1949 and I was soaking up every bit of bass fishing info I could get from the three major outdoor magazines.
Forty-five years later I’m still practicing what Jason taught me, staring at my homemade popping bug and twitching it on the calm surface of Kill Creek Lake. This beautiful little body of water near De Soto, KS has become my home water by default. Even though I ‘ve yet to catch a bass over a half pound I love this place. It’s twenty-four miles from my home, small enough to fish comfortably with my fourteen-foot johnboat and electric motor, and… well… it just looks bassy. Lots of standing timber, lush weed beds, everything but lily pads.
The fact that it’s yet to yeild a bass weighing over a half pound isn’t important. In the twilight after sundown when I’m staring at my homemade popping bug, letting it sit for as long as I can stand it, then twitching it a little, I’m still hanging on to my hat… and waiting. There’s got to be some big bass in a place that looks this good.
I think it was Gene Hill who said, “If there are no Labrador retrievers in heaven, I don’t want to go”. Or maybe it was Faith Hill. Anyway, I agree.
Raising and training a Lab pup is an exasperating but rewarding job. You can almost see the wheels turning in their heads as they absorb everything you teach them.
I’ve trained five Labs and my long-time friend Gary Custer of Lee’s Summit, MO has trained many more. Now eight months old and ready for water, Gary’s male Lab Cody is ready to take on new challenges.
Gary and I recently introduced this gangly black ball of energy to water and shotguns. All legs, feet and wagging tail, Cody started doing what he was born and bred to do and thoroughly enjoyed himself in the process. He’s no Ester Williams right now but style will come when he gets those big webbed feet under control.
While I fired a shotgun in the air forty yards in front of him as Gary threw a training dummy Cody learned the big boom means something fun is coming. Gradually moving closer we soon had the pup sitting at his owner’s side while Gary fired the shotgun and I tossed the dummy.
If Gary can scare up a pigeon or duck sometime this summer Cody will learn what feathers are all about. That’s when the real fun begins.
No doubt about it, this pup will be ready for duck season come November.
