Reel Adventures

Traded in my usual tools of the trade for a 5 weight fly rod yesterday and hit the Toccoa River (Northern GA) with good friend Bob Borgwat from Reel Angling Adventures.  As you can see we were very successful on our hunt for rainbow trout on the fly.  My background does not include a lot of fly fishing by any means so this was a great change from the norm and a great learning experience.   

Gunnar was also along for the adventure and was able to land about 3 times as many trout as yours truly.  He has a much better back ground with a fly rod then myself.  Being from MN (the land of 10,000 + lakes), I really haven't spent any time chasing fish in streams or rivers.  Unless I was on the Mighty Mississippi chasing smallmouth and largemouth, but that was always on conventional tackle. 

Bob with a nice Toccoa River Rainbow.  Bob did an excellent job of leading us through the turns and elbows of the river.  If you are ever going to be in or around North GA make sure and take some time to spend a half day chasing these mighty trout with Bob, you will not regret it. 

I spent most of my day trying to fish my fly out of a tree, but I did manage to put it close enough to coax a few nice trout into biting my wooly bugger.  I was managing about 30-40 foot casts with in the first few hours, pretty good for a guy who is used to casting plugs all day.   

  

Sunrise over beautiful Lake Lanier

Was a gorgeous sunrise as we prepared to leave the dock for a day on the water.  It made for a great photo moment.  There was a coating of frost on everything this morning before we headed out.  God was shining down on us; letting us know we were going to have a good day....wait I fish for a living, every day is a good day! 

This is the view looking to the left from my dock.  Pretty gorgeous....would almost think you were in Canada...eh!

The Ranger and Rude getting ready to embarq on another fishing adventure!  They are both good to me time and time again. :)

Back in the saddle....on my a game

Wow....What a difference one day can make.  Everything really seemed to come together for me today and I was putting nice spots in the boat at a rate like never before.  I found the fish to be much for receptive to what I was throwing.  I also threw out everything I was told, threw out all the info about where to go, and threw out all my bad mojo from the past few days and just went fishing.  I picked up a rod and went back to what I was confident doing.  I finally stopped over thinking it and it paid off with big dividends.  OMG was stated many times today.  When they come up boat side, I  had to beg to keep them buttoned.  Between Gunnar and I we boated over 26 spotted bass today! 

FISHWITHMATT.COM on blast! 

Don't mean to take the lime light away from Gunnar; but today was my day...boi!  But he did also have a great day and put many nice fish in the boat.  I think I was trying to give him the 101 clinic today.  We even figured out how to prop the camera up with the timer to get this photo. 

This was the accu-cull scale with one of the giants on it.  It actually settled out at 5.34 but the digital timing was off a bit.  Yes thats right, a spotted bass in the 5 plus range....Magnum!  Our best 5 would have gone over 20 pounds today.Until next time, keep your lines tight and yell FISH ON! 

Gunnar shows me the finer points of bass fishing....bass101

I felt like I didn't know what end of the rod to hold today.  Opposite of yesterday.  Yesterday I thought I was Cup/Classic bound.  I couldn't do wrong.  Who flipped the switch?!  I am sure many anglers have had that feeling before....not a good feeling!  I really couldn't do anything right.  I couldn't find a bait I was confident in, I couldn't find a pattern I was confident in, and I couldn't find the fish.  

Gunnar tried to show me the way today, with a bit of his own action.  He was able to catch a few small spots and a largemouth.  Really wasn't my day... The largemouth have been tough to come by on this impoundment.  It was good to see him do battle.  But really hoping things come around for me tomorrow.  Today was a lesson in bass fishing, via gunnar!

The conditions have been far from ideal.  Yesterday, we had such dense fog that you couldn't see where you were going.  Navigation was terrible.  Thank god for Lowrance Insight HDS 8 GPS.  We were very happy to return to the dock in one piece.  Today it was a bit breezy.  The temps have been around the 50 mark with water temps about 53.  Should be a crush session.  Going to get back after it tomorrow.  Might even head to Guntersville for a bit of early practice.