Friday afternoon was pretty typical. School ended, I got a few things ready for my classes on Monday, and I left school with the intention of picking up pizza on my way home. This is so much of a usual routine that the folks at the pizza joint I order from know me by name and expect to see me on Fridays. The only difference in this routine was that I was running a little ahead of schedule and had about 15 minutes to stop by a fishing spot. I had been prospecting at Blue Springs Lake dam for about the last month and trying to see if the hybrids (wipers) and/or white bass were moving into the dam to feed. I had been throwing flies off the dam for a few hours each weekend and hadn’t gotten a sniff yet. I found out about this pattern a few years ago from Luke Langton. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, then I HIGHLY suggest that you visit The Midwest Drift website. Luke runs the site and does everything from writing a blog, to small batch fly orders, to guided bass trips on private water. Luke turned me on to this spot about 2 or 3 years ago when we were shooting the breeze at an Iron Fly event in Kansas City.
So there I was, with 15 minutes to prospect on the dam with the hopes of finding some fish moving in towards the boulders. My gear was about as simple and minimal as possible. I had a 8 weight rod with a 6 foot fluorocarbon leader, and an articulated streamer. I call it “The Chief” because it is just a bigger version of “The Brave”. That’s it. No extra flies. No additional leader. None of my usual tools. I hadn’t caught squat off the dam so far this year and had 15 minutes to not catch anything again. Why would I need any of that extra junk?
I was about 10 minutes into my casting practice. That’s what I call it when I’m not getting bites and I start having little casting contests against myself. I start wondering, “I wonder if I can throw 5 feet further? I wonder how close I can get to that rock? I wonder how much line I can shoot with this leader, fly, and rod set-up? You get the idea. As I was reaching my casting distance max, I started varying my retrieves so I guess you can say I was doing more than just going through the motions. That’s when I felt a bump.
I was so surprised by it, I didn’t really know what to do so I set the hook a little late and a little light. I felt pretty certain that I had just my fly sink too deep and I had hit a rock. I thought this because I had two extremely sharp hooks on my fly and felt pretty certain that a real hit would have almost hooked itself. It was at that point I decided that I was going to either lose my fly on a rock or end up hooking a fish. I cast back to the same spot. Same result. I cast back to the same spot for a third time and this time set the hook in a different manner. Rather than setting the hook with the rod only, I pulled hard on the line to bring it tight and THEN set the hook with the rod. I believe this is called a strike-slip. I am certain however, that it worked. I was hooked up with an actual fish and it was NOT happy.
The unseen specter was into my backing in no time. I could feel the head shakes at the end of the run and that seemed to eliminate a large catfish so I figured I had tied into a good sized wiper. I had only done this on one other occasion and the fish that I landed ended up being 25 inches long and weighing right at 8 pounds. My hope was that this fish was similar. We fought for about 10 minutes and it was very much a tug of war match. I would gain ground, it would run to open water in front of me, I would gain ground, it would run to open water on my left, etc. I could feel the fight was coming to an end and I started to look around to see if anyone was around to take a picture of me with my catch. As luck would have it, two young girls that looked to be about 15 we walking along the dam and headed in my direction. When I hollered at them and asked if they could take a picture for me, they were really interested and happy to oblige. While I didn’t have a scale or measuring tape, the pictures show that the fish was around 25 inches long and probably weighed about 8 pounds. All I could think was “I can’t believe this. Lightning has struck twice.” I could not have been more wrong.
More to come tomorrow!
I quickly got on the phone and asked the wife to pick up dinner as well as the kids. I also begged to say out until dark. The excitement in my voice must have been both obvious and sincere because she gladly said yes. I made a few more casts with nothing to show and figured that I might have spooked everything in the area so I moved down shore about 25 yards. About 3 casts later was all it took for me to get hooked up again. It was another wiper that probably came in around 3-4 pounds. After a few pictures, I started making phone calls. I just couldn’t keep this kind of fortune to myself.
I first called Luke (remember, the Midwest Drift fella) to tell him that the wiper bite was on and that he needed to grab some gear and get to the dam. He said he would be there in about 35 minutes. I then called Austin (former student, experienced fly fisherman, and contributor to this site). I had to leave an enthusiastic message that might have been on the borderline of yelling. I then called Matt at Rainbow Fly Shop. I informed him that he needed to either close the store and get to the dam OR tell every customer that came in the shop to grab an 8 weight and get to the dam. While I waited for some folks to show up, I got back to fishing.
I moved down the shore about another 25 yards and that’s when things really heated up. I ended up catching three fish on about five casts that were either small wipers or big white bass. While this was by far the best luck I had ever had fishing off the dam, a part of me was hoping that the luck would hold up until other folks arrived. I didn’t want to promise them fish only to have the school of fish move along. That would leave them disappointed and me looking like a moron! About that time, I got another bite and something happened that has never happened to me in my life!
The line went tight and the fish made an aggressive run. Again, I was into my backing and the head shakes told me that I probably had another wiper in the 6-8 pound class. While I was starting to gain some ground after about 5 minutes into the fight, I noticed that the connection between my fly line and backing looked a little frayed. I later surmised that it was due to a few fish getting into my backing and the knot rubbing against the guides of the rod. I also realized in the coming days that I have had this rod and line combination for about 15 years. I don’t use this rod a lot and got it to take to Canada back in 2002 to throw at pike. I only use this rod when fishing for wipers, white bass, and BIG largemouth. I also realized that the knot between the backing and fly line was also 15 years old. With all of that being said, I shouldn’t have been shocked when the knot broke but that’s hindsight for you.
So there I was, standing on a dam with the fish bighting like crazy and fresh out of fly line to throw at said fish. I also realized that I had just lost about 60-90 dollars worth of fly line. Sure I was a little bummed, but that feeling quickly changed to problem-solving mode. I knew I had to get back into the game. I knew I had to get some new fly line, or a new reel, or something to make up for my loss. Also, if you remember from yesterday’s post, I only had one fly with me on this particular outing. That too was lost to the fish that took my fly line and needed to be replaced. However, I wasn’t ready for this story to be over! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Heck no, and it wasn’t over for me! (That’s an Animal House reference. I know the Germans didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor.)
I had a couple of options. 1. I could drive all the way home, get another reel and some flies and drive all the way back to the dam. This entire process could have taken anywhere from 30-45 minutes. In my opinion, that was too much time to lose. 2. I could drive five minutes to my school and grab an 8 weight rod that was donated to my fly fishing club, grab a box of flies from a tackle box, and be back in 10-15 minutes. This at least SEEMED like a better option on the surface so this is what I went with. However, my buddies that I had called still hadn’t shown up yet and I didn’t want them to think that I skipped out on them. I decided to wait in the parking lot that I directed them to, and then head to my school. Thankfully, Luke showed up shortly after arriving at my truck and I shared with him what had happened. He graciously offered to let me use one of his rods but I have a funny hang-up about using other people’s fly rods out of the fear that I might break it and have to replace a high dollar set-up. That fear motivated me to head to my classroom instead.
I took some liberties with some speed limits between the dam and my school…until I saw a police officer. Then I backed it down to 5 over the speed limit and thanked my blessings that I didn’t get pulled over. When I got to my classroom, I was able to quickly locate a reel with 8 weight line…which didn’t have any leader on it. I frantically searched for some line but all I could find was 4 and 6 pound line on a spool. This wasn’t going to work. While flinging open cabinet doors in my class, I found a spool of cheap 10 pound monofilament that I used for a science project a couple of years ago. This was going to have to do since I was in a pinch. I then went to the tackle box to locate the olive green box of flies that I KNEW had some big streamers in it for situations just like this one. I opened the box, and it was missing. That’s when the memory of putting said box in my black backpack that I always carry when I fish (except for today) came rushing back to me. The next memory that flooded my brain was that of setting the backpack down in my garage. That’s it. There were no more memories after that because that was the resting place of said backpack. That’s when I turned my attention to the Rubbermaid bins on a bookshelf.
During the winter months, the fly fishing club that I sponsor learns to tie flies that they can fish with in the spring. My eyes darted from box to box and I quickly located a box titled “Hooks & Beads” a box titled “Hackle” and a box titled “Rabbit”. I grabbed a vice and quickly got to work slapping a streamer (The Brave) together so I could get back to the dam. I’ve tied about 200 Braves in my life so this one came together pretty quick. I then fumbled with attaching a leader to the fly line and my set-up was complete. I was back in the game. I was walking out the door when Austin called. He said that he was standing on the dam with his brother Hunter and Luke and that they had just tripled up on wipers. It was as short conversation and I took some more liberties with the speed limit and stop signs. I wonder if a cop would have believed that stop signs look a lot like yield signs?
When I arrived at the dam, I quickly found Luke, Austin, and Hunter. They were very appreciative for my phone call and glad that they had shown up to fish. Everyone was happy and having a great time. Luke was especially happy because he had caught his biggest wiper/hybrid to date. The picture speaks for itself, but just to be clear, this fish probably went about 8 pounds.
Austin had caught a couple of “small” wipers that went about 3-4 pounds, but don’t feel too bad for him. On Sunday evening, he caught an 8 pounder too. I too was able to get a little fishing in
on Sunday morning and put one more white bass in my hands to cap the weekend.
As for Friday, the activity slowed as the sun sank in the sky but the overall mood of the group was high and we shared a lot of laughs. As we wondered to the east end of the dam, it seemed like we were just walking and swapping stories rather than heading to the next fishing spot. The mood was light, everyone was laughing and smiling and all things in the world were just…right. We made a few more casts as it got darker and Hunter even landed one more white bass to conclude the day. As we walked back to our vehicles, we talked about coming back to the dam over the course of the weekend. It seemed that everyone would try to get out one more time but we couldn’t get our schedules to work out and it became apparent that we would not be fishing together in the near future. It kind of felt like a high school graduation party. There was an overall feeling of euphoria and satisfaction mixed with a small sadness that we would not be reliving that moment anytime soon if ever. This has become one of my favorite fishing memories and stories because of all of the events that unfolded but more so because of the people that I was able to share it with. While I WILL fish by myself, nothing beats sharing time on the water and catching big fish with friends!
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