Fishing Trips/ Outings – Velox Seeker

Outing 4 March 2023…

It has been awhile since anything has been posted to the blog and I apologize. Life has gotten in the way. I’ve been working 16 hour shifts which leaves little room for anything else.

We did manage to get out to a local lake to fish this morning even though the odds were stacked against us. We came off of two days of solid rain and wild temperature fluctuations. And of course, around here, when the sun comes out and the temperature starts to climb, the end result is always WIND.

I ended up buying a 2023 Daiwa Airity 2000S-P spinning reel after all. This was the only contender that I’ve seen in the latest 2023 releases. And in my opinion, this is one classy looking reel.

The Airity is every bit as good as the top-of-the-line Daiwa Exist at a substantial savings. Keep in mind that this is a Bass reel and NOT a Trout reel, so if youre looking for minimal start-up inertia, you need to look elsewhere. The Airity has MagSeal so it does possess some start-up inertia. However, it is VERY smooth when turning the handle. I am not a Trout connoiseur so certain key features don’t mean much to me. I am a river fisherman who chases smallmouth, and this reel weighs 147 grams and has 5kg of drag which is more than enough to handle what we’re chasing. The magnesium frame with the bigger gear is a feature that I prefer and this reel is built to be solid. All in all, I really like it and will put it through its paces soon I hope.

I did spend quite a bit of time throwing minnow baits with my baitcast setup. I can honestly say that I’m getting the hang of it and actually enjoy casting it.

I have become a huge fan of the Veles Handcrafted Lures and have been throwing them almost exclusively. I can’t wait for Spring to get here so we can get back to fishing more. We have sorely missed fishing the rivers.

Until next time…take care and be safe. Hope everyone is able to get out and fish. If not, I’m sure it won’t be much longer.

Feb 19, 2023 Outing to Trout Pond…

The weatherman lied and said winds would be calm. Hah…10-15mph is anything but calm. We waited a bit until the temps climbed above 40F and then headed over to the trout pond.

We arrived at 0835 and had the first Rainbow trout in the net by 0844.

Here is where it gets interesting! Off to my left, my wife was fishing, and she LOVES to fish. Everytime I hooked a fish, she would have to reel in and run over to take pictures for me. And I do the same for her. Except THREE trout in a row before she had caught one was starting to grate on her nerves. DANGER DANGER! I heard her “loudly mutter” in my general direction, “Am I gonna get to fish today?” So the image below instantly popped into my head…

Even though I don’t think this is necessarily a bad idea, I do however like being married!

I’m not going to say that I slacked off or anything to let her catch up…but I slacked off lol. And it didn’t take long until she hooked a nice rainbow. We were even parroting the TroutMagnetMan! “This joker is cutting up” and “simmer down” as well as “shoot fire.”

So it ended up being my turn for awhile to cast out and hear her drag go off, followed by a speed retrieve and a mad dash over to get photos. This went on for over an hour before things calmed down. I managed to catch 6 and she caught 5 so neither one of us is really complaining. I just thought how things played out was funny. As I’ve said many, many times before…I am blessed to have a wife who is a true ANGLER and is very competent. We make a good team and have a lot of fun.

Her setup. Shimano Soare XR 58UL rod with a Shimano Soare XR 500 spinning reel. She had FUN with this combo!

And as always, our area started getting a wee bit crowded so we opted to head home, calling the outing a success. Thanks for reading and hope to catch you on the next one.

Trout Pond Part 2…

We returned to the trout pond on Sunday morning because the weather was still good, although the winds will be steadily increasing as the next round of storms approaches.

I opted to use my Apia Grandage Lite 61 rod with the Daiwa Presso LT 1000S-P reel on it today. I think it is a really good combo that combines casting distance with fish handling capabilities. And the Daiwa Presso LT might just be one of the best ultralight reels out there.

There were already several people there when we arrived. We weren’t seeing anyone catching trout so we were wondering what was going on. We rigged up the rods and started casting our spoons and were into trout pretty quickly. We were throwing 4 gram Daiwa Crusader spoons since these have turned into the most productive spoons we have.

It was definitely good to catch some trout. We conversed with another fisherman for a few minutes before the mob started closing in and we had to relocate. We still caught trout! I have underestimated trout spoons for a LONG time and they are highly productive…of course these are hatchery raised fish so I’m sure not the brightest portion of the species. Just sayin…

For us, it is not a numbers game, although that does help to solidify/quantify our technique. Rather, just being outdoors and fishing is what we feel is the most important part. We don’t compete with others or even each other. We enjoy seeing ourselves and others catching fish and having fun. Until next time…

It Was A Nice Day To Hit The Trout Pond…

After 4 inches of ice followed by 2 solid days of rain…we finally got some sunshine. And to top it all off, there was NO WIND.

We ended up having a lazy morning waiting for the temperature to warm up from its starting point of 22F. It was a nice way to start the day and we never felt rushed.

I took the Stella today and it performed flawlessly. Maybe all of the issues previously were because of me and how I fish. I ended up catching 2 Rainbow trout and the Mrs. caught 3 Rainbow trout. She did really well and looked like a pro out there.

This one was fun! Put up a great fight and made the drag on the Stella sing.

The main thing is that they stocked trout and we don’t smell like skunk. I will admit that I have never really fished for trout with spoons and I’m beginning to enjoy it. Forces you to slow down a bit and focus. Hopefully we will be able to get out a few more times before Trout Season ends at the stocked ponds. I’m definitely ready to go again tomorrow!

24 Hours Makes a Difference…

Yesterday morning I decided I wanted to practice more with my baitcast set ups. From previous blog posts you may remember that I came late to the baitcast game, so I practice as often as I can.

The weather was 61F and partly sunny, but the wind was a steady 18mph with gusts to 30mph. Not ideal for practicing but I have to take advantage of any window of opportunity.

I was doing pretty well once I adjusted the reel to match the weight of the lure I was throwing. I even managed to catch a small largemouth bass in the process.

The problems started when I got cocky! I started throwing for distance as well as casting into the wind. Huge fail that resulted in a birds nest the likes of which I have never seen before. I ended up having to cut the line off the spool so that pretty much ended the outing. Yes…I can be a dummy sometimes.

Fast forward to this morning and everything had changed. The winds had switched out of the north at 20mph and the temperature had dropped to 26F with a steady ice mist coming down. (Here I will encourage the reader to revert back to the last sentence of the previous paragraph)

I decided it would be a great idea to go trout fishing first thing in the morning. We arrived at sun rise and headed to the pond and started casting. We fished for about 30 minutes before we (meaning ME) were forced to retreat. Two of my fingers on my right hand began to freeze and the pain was making it impossible for me to fish. If you’ve had frostbite before then you know how susceptible you are to getting it again. And yes…I was wearing gloves! I could see it in my wifes eye’s that she was cold too but apparently we were playing a game of “chicken” to see who would quit first. Grrrrr.

So the end result was that we didn’t catch any trout and I had to concede defeat according to the rules of the game. Oh the shame!!!! And to top it off…she coined a new term…SKUNK CHICKEN!

Not sure how I will recover from it all, but my honor is at stake now. I’m already beginning to hate 2023.

Outing to Local Trout Pond…

We got up this morning and decided we wanted to fish. These past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity as we welcomed a new Grandson into the world. He’s a healthy, happy boy and we are so grateful.

The weather has been up and down and both of us have seen an uptick in our work schedules. Squeezing time in to go fishing has been tough.

I had ordered a Valkein Breakthrough Zero Verge BTZV-62GL rod awhile back and decided I wanted to try it out. I paired it with the Shimano Vanford 1000 and off we went. It was 38F, cloudy, cold and damp, as well as windy. We managed to catch 3 before the cold made us head home. My hands cannot take the cold anymore, even wearing gloves, they still started to hurt quite a bit.

As always, it was good to get out. I think we both needed an outing no matter how short it was. Spring is still quite aways off but who knows…so far the winter here has been relatively mild. We hope to log more outings soon. Stay tuned and be safe out there.

A Morning of Trout Fishing…

We started the morning at an infamous trout pond because their website said they were stocking trout last night. After fishing for an hour and the wife managing to catch only a small largemouth bass, we opted to try another location. Once again, the people administering this pond are patent liars. Charging people $60.00 to fish here and not stocking is a fraud and we will most likely never fish here again. We KNOW how to catch trout! Stop blaming the fishermen.

But I digress, we changed locations and immediately started catching trout. (Notice: Sapulpa Parks Administration-see above.) This is only the second time we have fished this pond, but we like it since it actually has trout in it. Can you tell I’m a little bit peeved?

All told we caught 8 trout and that one Largemouth bass, so not a bad day at all. We would’ve had a few more but they came unbuttoned before we could get the net on station to receive them. The bonus was that this trout pond is free to fish as long as you have a State fishing license. We were both using trout spoons and they performed well until the bite switched off.

My setup: TenRyu RZI51LL with a Shimano Vanquish C2000S.

Her setup: TenRyu RZ6102S-LML and Shimano Stella C2000S.

We were tempted to try a third location but Mrs. Velox Seeker wasn’t feeling up to it. She had surgery yesterday and is recovering but the drive to fish is strong in her. She did really good with everything that has transpired in the last 24 hours.

Hopefully my little rant didn’t derail this blog post but I felt it needed to be said. We did manage to have a good outing and accomplished our objective. AND…we didn’t get skunked! Now I will make her rest like she’s supposed to, and don’t blame me for this excursion, it was her idea!

Outing: 11DEC2022.

We’ve had a lot of rain here in the past few days which causes havoc with our fishing. I wasn’t really feeling like getting out today but I have a reel I wanted to test. Zip has been suffering from cabin fever since he hasn’t been going to the trout ponds with us, so we headed to the river. Prospects for catching fish weren’t high but we decided to give it a go anyway.

2019 Shimano Vanquish C2000S. A GREAT reel!

Normally this time of year the river is about 6 to 6.5ft but was a little over 8ft today.

We just let Zip do his thing. He burned off a ton of energy and slept the whole way home.

The river was murky so we decided not to chance trying to cross it.

As expected, we caught nothing. It was a cool, damp and dreary day but it sure beats working. With the river level being up like it was, we didn’t try crossing to access more area to fish. We’ll get them next time! Cheers

Finally!…

Some of you may remember that the wife and I purchased a $60 permit so we could fish a local trout pond and extend our fishing season. After 6 outings to that area and only seeing one trout, we became fed up and started looking elsewhere. I could post a long rant but I won’t. Let me just put it this way…2 days after the alleged November stocking date, and the lake is smooth as glass, and we are there for 2 hours and didn’t even see a single trout rise??? I am beginning to believe that this City only stocked at the beginning of the season and haven’t done it since.

We used to fish this lake pre-COVID all the way back to the year 1998 and never had an issue catching trout. Most times we would catch a limit in about 30 minutes. I’m sure there are possible reasons or excuses, but if you take peoples money, deliver on your promise. I’m talking to you City of Sapulpa.

We found another trout pond that is somewhat local to us and went to visit. First thing we noted was that the parking lot was full of cars and we could see people spaced around the lake. That is always a good sign that trout have been stocked. We found a spot and started fishing. It didn’t take long before we were hooking up with trout.

I’m not going to get into the “Wild versus Stocked” debate. I live in Oklahoma so we don’t have native trout, none that I’m aware of anyway. Not much choice but to fish for stockers. Trout fishing opportunities are sorely limited in this state. Especially when people are allowed to own portions of rivers so wading can be illegal at worst or problematic at best. You don’t have to look far to find “Kens and Karens.”

Now onto more important things…The last two rods we purchased were the Daiwa Silver Creek Glass Progressive 53L and the MajorCraft FSG-4102UL. Both of these rods are fiberglass and we have been testing them out quite a bit lately. Both will make excellent stream rods, especially for the types of fishing we do.

Both fish really well and the Daiwa rod pairs nicely with the Daiwa Exist reel. But from a cost to performance view…the MajorCraft wins hand down. It fishes identically to the Daiwa and costs 1/3rd the price. As I’ve said many times before, MajorCraft gives you A LOT of bang for the buck.

I really like the flexibility of these rods as well as their durability. It brings back memories for sure, and I can’t wait for Spring to come so we can get back out and go after our native smallmouth again.

I don’t see any major changes coming in our fishing gear for 2023. Honestly, I have more rods and reels than I need, but it is fun trying them out and filling a niche in some circumstances. I am looking at a 2019 Shimano Vanquish spinning reel. Rumor has it that they will revamp it in 2023 but if they go to the super slow oscillation like what is on the Stella, I will give it a hard pass.

I am working on a ‘Best of 2022″ or “Most Used Gear of 2022” blog post and will try to get that out soon. I hope everyone is doing well out there. Thanks

Still Kicking….

Happy belated Veterans Day to all who served. Time is getting away from me, that’s for sure.

Fall is upon us which means we will probably switch to trout fishing instead of fishing for river smallmouth. We have visited the local trout pond twice so far but haven’t caught anything as of yet.

I’ve been playing around with an old-school Abu Cardinal C3 lately. I’m not going to lie, I prefer modern spinning reels! But it’s fun to pull a vintage reel out of the display case every once in a while.

I have looked at the stocking schedule and it appears that they will stock the pond once a month. I am not sure about the size and quantity but will keep digging for more info. We used to do really well at this pond but it has been abysmal the last 4-5 times we have fished it. But then again, as soon as the trout are released, people flock to the release point and beat the water to death. We usually pack up and leave at that point. I’d rather give the trout time to disperse throughout the pond/lake, but that’s just my opinion.

As a side note: We have opted to try out Instagram and both of us have pages there…#Velox Seeker and #oklafishingwife. We hope everyone is doing well and getting a chance to get out and fish. Stay safe and we will see you again soon.

Outing to Local Lake 30OCT2022…

After receiving some much needed rain Friday and most of Saturday, we awoke to a very light breeze and partly sunny skies. We decided to hit a local lake and fish for a bit.

Last outing I was using Varivas Bush Trail VEP Nylon line with my Stella and was having some issues. My wife hadn’t tried out her Stella yet so on Thursday we went to another local lake for her to cast and test it out. Hers was spooled with Varivas Super Trout Advance Twitch Master VLS line and performed flawlessly. I re-spooled mine with the same line she was using and today was the first chance I had to try it out on this reel.

It definitely solved all of my line issues. My guess is the Stella didn’t like stiff monofilament too much. In the short time we were there, we managed to catch 6 fish, although nothing of size.

As the season advances deeper into autumn, our fishing options narrow down quite a bit. We decided to buy a permit for another lake that stocks trout during the winter so that will extend our fishing season quite a bit. I honestly don’t think they stocked it too often due to the pandemic but we’re hoping they will get back on track.

And what would one of our outings be without picking up trash.

The plaque was laying up on the shoreline and I brought it home. Seems to really fit the current time we are living in!

It breaks my heart to see so much trash, especially after all of the time and effort we put into cleaning that area up earlier this year. Now…you can’t even tell we did anything. Looks like I’ll have another winter project.

On a side note- The Stella is amazing.

River Outing 21 OCT 2022…

I have a few days of vacation that I need to use before the end of the year so I decided that today was as good as any other day. The morning started off colder than I expected with it being 34F when I stepped into the river at 0730. I was wearing my usual wet wading gear and opted to just suffer until the sun came up. The forecast called for temps to rise into the mid-80’sF by afternoon.

Autumn is upon us as the leaves are starting to change.

I decided to take 2 rods today, both TenRyu’s. A TenRyu Rayz Spectra RZS51LL and a TenRyu Rayz Integral RZI50L. The first one is a 2-piece “Light Light Action” and the second one is a 4-piece “Light Action. The Spectra was wearing a 2022 Shimano Stella C2000SHG and the Integral had a 2022 Daiwa Exist LT 2000S-H reel.

This was my first outing with the Stella and I had several line issues throughout the outing. It might be the type of line, I don’t know yet. The Exist performed flawlessly. They are both spooled with the same line, the Varivas Super Trout Advance Bush Trail VEP Nylon.

It was good to get out and go fishing, but it wasn’t the same since the wife and dog weren’t with me.

Soto Amicus stove boiling water for coffee.

Need to come up with a better way to carry a rod on the Yeti.

The water was crystal clear and lazily flowing its course. The temperature climbed rapidly and I happily fished along. I ended up catching 15 decent smallmouth. I figured with the recent cold snap we’ve had, the fishing would be more difficult and it was. It sure beats working!