The Big not so Easy

A couple weekends ago, my roommate Aaron and I loaded up the kayaks at dawn and headed over to Hopedale, Louisiana, in the middle of the marsh.  Hopedale is only 30 miles southeast of New Orleans, but it is a whole different world.  You actually have to drive through a gate in the levee to get there.

The Highway 46 Floodgate

The levee is great for those people living on the inside, but not so great those on the outside.  I'm imagining the residents of Hopedale racing down the highway as the storm surge is rising and the floodgates are about to close.  That will probably be in a movie at some point.

Anyway, once you get through the levee, the highway is surrounded by marsh.  There are mobile homes on stilts on one side of the road and boats lining a canal on the other.  Duck hunters and fishermen abound.  We came with a specific goal in mind: to sight fish for redfish.  The weather forecast was for a sunny day in the mid-60s.  On warm winter days, the sun heats up the black mud bottom of the shallows, and redfish abandon the depths to prowl the warmer shallow water in search of crabs and baitfish.  At least thats what is supposed to happen...  We kayaked around the edges of a lagoon searching for redfish for several hours, but I didn't see a thing.  Aaron saw one tail, but it spooked as soon as he cast.  The only fish of the day was a speckled trout Aaron caught while drifting.

The highlights of the day for me were seeing a great horned owl in a tree on the way to the launch, watching a sharp-shinned hawk swoop around hunting small birds, and kayaking with a pod of dolphins.

Objects in picture are closer than they appear...

In the end it didn't get much over 60 degrees, which may have kept most of the fish deep, and the wind picked up, making it harder to spot surface disturbances.  On the way back to the launch, 6 flats boats zoomed by at about 40 mph.  All occupants were covered from head to toe, with buffs and sunglasses preventing any skin from seeing daylight.  I would understand this in the midsummer sun or on a cold day, but it was kind of overkill for that day.  I think it's more about trying to look the part.  Each boat had a poling platform, casting platform, and about 4 inches of freeboard and probably cost 75 times more than my kayak ($30,000 vs $400?).  I managed to talk to one of them back at the launch, and he said it had been a slow day, which for him meant just a few fish brought to the boat, and less fish spotted than usual.  He seemed to think the fish would be tough to spot from a kayak since they weren't tailing - the height of a poling platform provides a much better angle for seeing into the water.  I know that sight fishing for redfish can be done from a kayak - it may just take a little more patience.  I've got my eyes on one of those flats boats, but for now I'm going to stick with the kayak.

If there's one thing I've learned while fishing the past few months, it's that sight fishing for redfish is not easy.  Its actually quite difficult.  Fortunately, kayaking around the marsh is very pleasant on its own.  In fact, being able to do that comfortably in January is quite a luxury, and any fish is just a bonus.

Fish of 2011

2011 was a great year full of completely new fishing experiences for me.  Before moving to Mississippi, my list of fly caught fish consisted of smallmouth bass, rainbow trout, brook trout, brown trout, catfish, suckers, and various kinds of panfish (brim for you southern folk).  In the past year I added flounder, speckled trout, white trout, hardhead catfish, redfish, ladyfish, sheepshead, Florida pompano, Spanish mackerel, ground mullet, and a few more random little guys.  All of those fish were on the fly.  The funny thing is I often felt like I wasn't catching much, but looking back, I caught a bunch of different kinds of fish.  I think that's an exciting part of living on the coast - you never know what kind of fish you're going to catch.

I've picked out pictures of what I think are my best fish of the year.  Some of them have been posted here before but some of them haven't.  Its not a particularly impressive collection, but I was quite pleased to catch them.

 This is a sheepshead caught while fishing on Ship Island in the spring of last year.  I had been chasing visible sheepshead from the beach all day, and I finally hooked up with this one while blind casting.

I caught this Florida pompano on Petit Bois Island in the summer.  It is the only pompano I've ever caught, so I don't really know how big it is compared to other ones, but it is a beautiful fish and it put up a great fight.  I'd love to catch more of these this year.

This is a two foot long speckled trout that I caught on Ship Island during a morning where the trough between the beach and the first sandbar was just full of specks.  I love this picture because of how its belly bulges around where I'm holding it.

The common factor in these pictures?  The islands...  Good things happen when I go to the barrier islands.  I can't wait for the ferry to start running again in the spring.  Or better yet, I can't wait to get my own boat!

I plan on doing a little fishing this weekend, so look for a post sometime next week.

Grouse Camp

This year, I made the long drive up from Mississippi to Michigan to stay with my family over Christmas.  I also managed to head up into northern Michigan for a couple days of grouse hunting with my brother, David, and my friends Nick and Matt.  My hunting and shooting experience is quite limited.  I shoot clay pigeons every once in a while and can count the number of times I've gone grouse hunting on one hand.  Success has also been limited.  In fact, rather than saying I went up north to go grouse hunting, I sometimes prefer to say I went up north to "walk around the woods with a gun."

My buddy Nick invited us to stay at his family's deer camp, which is a primitive but well outfitted cabin in the north woods of Michigan.  I've stayed at "Deer Camp" quite a few times now, but its always been either "Trout Camp" or "Grouse Camp" for me.  Nick has been featured several times in this blog, as he is the one who had the bachelor party in Colorado and got me the fly reel cufflinks.

We got up to camp the morning after Christmas and immediately started hunting.  The morning was completely unsuccessful with no grouse flushed along along a pine and aspen ridge where we had flushed a lot of grouse on a previous trip.  Disappointed, we headed back to camp for a quick lunch and headed out again with Nick's dad as a guide.  He led us to an area that had been clear cut recently, which is ideal for shooting since there are no trees or branches to contend with.  Pretty quickly, a grouse flushed ahead of Nick and he shot but it was pretty far away.  Grouse often flush in groups, and sure enough, four or five more flushed in quick succession.  Amazingly, we didn't get any of them despite the fact that each of us shot at least once.  In our defense, they all flushed quite far away.

All the grouse had flown up a wooded hill, so we decided to see if we could find them again.  Grouse often land in trees so I had my eyes riveted upward.  Its not often that you see a grouse before it flushes, but if you do, it should be an easy shot.  I spotted an odd shape far up in a tree, and, never being one to shoot and ask questions later, I asked my buddy Matt if he thought it was a grouse.  I actually brought my gun up to point in the direction I was looking.  Of course, it was a grouse, and it cleverly flushed as soon as I brought my gun back down.  I didn't get it, and I was quite mad at myself for not shooting, but looking back, if I had shot an owl or something, I would have been devastated.

We didn't find any more of the grouse we had flushed, so we headed back down to the clear cut.  Pretty quickly, Matt flushed a grouse and shot it.  Matt is by far the best shot in the group so it was no coincidence.  We were all pretty stoked as I don't think any of us expected to actually shoot anything (this expectation was set by previous hunting expeditions).  With newfound enthusiasm, we marched through the rest of the clear cut and proceeded to flush zero grouse.  Then we headed back toward camp through a pine forest.  Shockingly, I spotted another grouse in a mid level tree branch.  A wispy pine tree stood between us.  This one was well within range, and I knew it was a grouse, but once again I hesitated, trying to maneuver around the pine tree.  It flushed and I never even got a shot.  Matt told me I should've just shot through the pine tree, as some of the pellets were bound to get through.

The mighty hunter

Ruffed Grouse

All in all, it was a huge success compared to past outings.  There is a surprising amount of meat in one grouse.  Here it is being cooked with fresh wintergreen leaves over a wood stove.

It was delicious.  After dinner, things got a little crazy.

But as they say, what happens at grouse camp stays at grouse camp...

Drum Beat

For a while now, I've been searching for redfish or black drum, or really any fish that can be sight fished.  I look for subtle clues: a tail barely poking out of the water, a v-wake, a grass stem wiggling more than the rest.  I haven't been very successful.  Today was a very normal day on the water.  Not very successful.  Then, out of nowhere, BAM.  Gigantic tail.  Straight up in the air.  Just waving at me.  A tail the size of a tennis racquet.  Okay that might be a slight exaggeration, but it was huge.  Sometimes the clues aren't so subtle...  The big black drum's tail would appear for a second or two and then disappear for a minute.  Each time it would appear I would quickly maneuver my kayak within range and cast my Clouser minnow where I imagined that giant head to be.  Just one cast.  Then I would back away and wait for the tail to appear again.  I knew if I got too close it would spook and head off to deeper water.  This dance routine went on for about 10 minutes.  Then something different happened.  The tail popped up.  I cast.  I overshot.  I was slowly stripping the fly back in when the line went tight.  Ohmygosh I got'em!  I think I was more surprised than he was!

Shortly after hoookup

I immediately knew I was in for the long haul.  Last fall I watched my buddy, who was with me this time as well, land a 40 lb black drum on 12 lb test after about an hour.  But that wasn't from a kayak.  I quickly realized that fighting the fish from a kayak complicated things.  He was literally dragging me around the bayou!  When I made progress, it wasn't so much me reeling him in as it was reeling myself in.  Black drum are rather slow fighters.  Once he took me to about 3 wraps from my backing, but most of the battle was with about 20 ft of fly line out.  After about an hour and a half I realized I was in trouble.  The beast was tired; it was now just slowly swimming almost directly beneath the kayak.  Now what?  Try as I might I could not pull him up to the surface.  I was pulling against his weight so he didn't have to do much to resist it.  Having a 9 ft pole made things very awkward.  To make matters worse sunset was approaching.  I actually handed my buddy the rod and started trying to pull the leader up by hand, thinking if I could just get him up within sight I could reach down and grab him.  I tried this several times but each time I had to let go because he would swim a little bit and put too much tension in the line.  I really needed a beach to land him on.  Or heavier line.  I pulled on the leader one more time and felt a sickening feeling.  The line had broken off at the tippet knot after holding for two hours.

The only proof I've got...

In the end I would have released him anyway.  I got the thrill of the hunt, the take, and the fight.  I just missed out on the trophy shot.  It would've been by far the biggest fish of my life.  And it would've been sight fished from a kayak on the fly.  It doesn't get much more extreme.

Back at the launch, we saw something else that was pretty extreme.  You know you're in Mississippi when...

Yup thats a motorcycle towing a boat.

My reward for a tough day on the water:

Michissippi Fly Update

Well, I didn't make it out fishing last weekend - I ended up going into work instead...  And I won't be fishing for a while because I just got my ACL reconstructed.  Such fun!  But while I'm laying low for a few weeks, I'm doing my homework.  I just got Redfish on the Fly by John Kumiski so I'm looking forward to  reading that.  I'm also hoping to read lots of blog posts and watch lots of fly fishing videos.  Here is a link to one of my all time favorite fly fishing videos:  High in the Lowlands  23 minutes of Everglades excitement.  Enjoy, and keep those blog posts coming.

Grand Bay NERR Expedition Report

Well, the kayaking expedition was a great success.  I kayaked about 3 miles from the boat launch at Grand Bay NERR through Heron Bayou out to Middle Bay, allowing me a beautiful view of the Chevron refinery in Pascagoula, which looks like it could be an evil city out of a Disney movie.

After kayaking around a point, I took a different route back up into Heron Bayou and back to the launch.  The weather and scenery were wonderful.  Besides the regular wading birds and pelicans, I saw a white ibis fly directly overhead and watched a northern harrier glide slowly across the marsh with its wings in a V.

Like I said, the kayaking expedition was a great success.  The fishing?  Not so much.  On the way out I searched in vain for signs of redfish feeding in the shallows and cast to known oyster beds with no success. Then I trolled over the grass beds in Middle Bay for a little while and didn't get so much as a bump.  The most exciting thing that happened was when I kayaked into a small creek and spooked two fairly big fish, one of which actually bumped my kayak as it escaped.  My first reaction was 'redfish!', but they actually looked more like mullet as they swam past.

To be honest, I wasn't that surprised.  I haven't been very successful on similar outings in the past.  There is so much hype around sight fishing for reds, I expected them to be easier to see.  The only fish I see on a regular basis are mullet, and they are everywhere!  I think I only saw one redfish all day.  I got out to wade at one point, and I saw an explosion in the shallows followed by a bulge in the water as a fish chased something around, but by the time I waded within casting range, it was gone.  Seeing that once in a day of fishing is not enough to make it worth targeting.  Maybe I would be able to see more fish from up on a flats boat.  Or maybe I just keep hitting the marsh on the wrong tide.  Anyways, I'm going to keep trying.  This weekend my buddy and I are headed to our hot spot - its as close to a sure thing as I know of around here.  So hopefully I'll get this skunk off my back...

A nice shot of the sun's rays poking through the clouds.  Taken right before I got attacked by the mother lode of all gnats!

Grand Bay NERR Expedition

I am planning a kayaking and fishing expedition to the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve this weekend.  This is one of the few parts left of the Mississippi coast that is uninhabited and pristine, and I am very excited to visit this place again.  I went there last winter in search of redfish and came back empty handed, but it is an awesome expanse of water and grasses with endless creeks and bayous to explore.  This year is going to be different.  I did some homework:

http://grandbaynerr.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/OysterMap_Bayou_Heron.png

http://www.usm.edu/gcrl/research/images/seatrout.habitat/seatrouth.habitat.figure.5.jpg

Hopefully these maps will at least lead me to some spots to key in on.  Fish do like oysters and seagrass right?  Expect trophy shots in next week's follow up post...  Or if I don't post anything it probably means I got skunked... 

If anybody reads this and has fished here before (highly unlikely I know), I could use all the help I can get, so kindly leave me a comment with some advise.