Fishing in a Muddy Creek

and a smorgasbord of other stuff!

I taunt Insane with my first bass of the day! Yes, my friends, that is a tequila sunrise Culprit worm.

Yes, fishing in a muddy creek. That’s all the fishing I’ve gotten to do in the last couple weeks. Insane and I hit the little creek he features in his Lunchtime Angler series last Friday. I had stubbornly persisted in trying to fly fish this thing, but finally gave up. Bow and Arrow casting isn’t my specialty, and certainly not with gar flies and big bass poppers. That’s about all one has room for. The banks are heavily forested and steep. The creek is only about 15′ wide, and it’s full of downed brush. I pulled out the dusty spinning rod, found my stash of plastic worms, lizards and sinkers and rigged it up. It all came back to me surprisingly well. Fly fishing is my true love, but snaking a plastic worm through brush is still fun. And, on a hot day with a muddy creek in front of me, it felt, somehow, right.

I managed to catch four small bass and the hawg of the trip, a 7 lb bowfin. It was a handful on the light spinning rod. Sorry, no photos. The typical technique for actually getting your hands on a fish out of this creek is to “cane pole” the little beasts up to yourself. Not an option with a 7 lb bowfin. Insane manned the camera while I tried to ease the fish up the bank by pulling the line hand over hand. I somehow managed to wrap my right index finger in the line, nearly pinching it in two, and while trying to save that valuable appendage (read “while screaming and cursing at Insane to help”), the line finally broke. Too bad. I really wanted a photo of that fish, but I wanted the tip of my index finger even more.

Insane fishes the muddy creek in a photo I heavily altered just for the heck of it.

In other news, I heard from Andy Whitcomb last week. He got another article published on ESPN Outdoors. This time he talks about bait. So, I might have been reduced to plastic worm fishing, but at least I haven’t descended to the depths Andy has. Seriously though, Andy’s a good writer. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this particular article is, well, “cute.” Check out this one and his future articles on ESPN Outdoors.

I also recently heard from Matthew Crampton, our friend from Scotland who just loves taunting us with photos of huge brown trout. I found sadistic pleasure in Matthew’s latest note as it turns out he had a tough trip on his favorite island of South Uist. Just kidding, Matthew. If I can’t catch fish, I at least hope my friends can. Make sure to check out the book Matthew and his friends put together about their favorite fishing lodge on South Uist. I’m still reading the book, and it’s been great. (Note: I’ve been reading the book now for about two months, but as always my problem is that I have four or five books going at once and never seem to finish them…) You can pick up a copy of the book at www.muddlerbooks.com. Matthew sent the excellent photo below of the dog Bee who is apparently an excellent fishing companion – so long as you don’t miss any takes.

The fishing dog Bee on a recent South Uist fishing adventure.

David Knapp over at The Trout Zone has been posting articles about his adventures out West this summer. David’s blog is where you need to look if you want to read a fly fishing blog where people actually catch fish and, well, fly fish as opposed to dredging muddy creeks with plastic worms and whining about not getting to fish.

I finally got in my new tying desk! I’m trying to get the catastrophe that is my tying materials organized. As soon as that’s accomplished, I’ll post a photo. It’ll be the last time ever the desk will look that good.

I’m WAY behind the times here, but I finally saw the first Trout Bum Diaries DVD. Perhaps surprisingly, I actually enjoyed it. The narration was pretty cheesy, but a lot of the remainder was enjoyable. The filming was well done. If I was doing a similar movie, I’d do it a little differently, maybe with a little more structure, maybe toss in a few of the witty observances I’m famous for, etc. If you’d like to fund me in this effort, please email me right away. The DVD wasn’t bad at all. It made me really want to go to Patagonia.

I suppose that’s all I can ramble about. I apologize for neglecting the site so glaringly over the last month or so. Hopefully that’s about to change. Later in the week look for, finally, another TVangler classifieds item. Take care,

Nathan