I hope everyone had a great holiday and was able to spend time with family. We have a lot to be thankful for.
We’ve been really busy with trying to get ready for winter. Bringing in hay, stocking up on horse and chicken feed, as well as filling the bird feeders. It has already snowed twice and I realize I still need to increase my firewood supply. We will get it all done in due time.
All of the discarded/lost fishing line we have recovered in 2022.
I would especially like to give a shout out to all of the people who are trying to make their fishing areas a better place. Those who pick up trash and other detritus without being asked or told. Those are the people who make this sport and our world a better place. And I am thankful for them.
Conservation is a key component in fishing, whether it be stream/river/lake management, selective harvests or volunteer outings. We can all play a role no matter how small, so help out where you can.
I am also thankful for my readers. I appreciate each and every one of you! Until next time…take care and be safe.
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.
Back in early January, I set an arbitrary goal of 35 fishing trips for 2022. Looking back through my notes I met and exceeded that goal on Friday with 36 outings for the year.
For me, that was quite an accomplishment with our busy schedules as well as the weather working against us. We had a very minimal spring ( 3 weeks maybe! ) which included floods. Then we went straight into high temperatures and drought coupled with a prolonged summer.
And Friday was a classic example of Oklahoma weather! 34F in the morning and climbing to 85F later in the day with increasing winds. Saturday and Sunday each exhibited high winds of 25-40mph which made our type of fishing almost impossible.
Year to date we have managed to catch and release approximately 525 fish. But that doesn’t mean much to me other than looking through my notes and trying to develop a pattern on when and where is the best time to go.
But with an ever-changing river and seasonal variations, it is still a “crap shoot” or “best guess” scenario. And that is what I love best about our type of fishing.
Soon, winter will be upon us and opportunities to fish will diminish. It is a time for planning the next season as well as restocking tackle and searching maps for new areas to explore. I can’t express enough that the sum of the parts makes up the whole.
And we both managed to catch some Personal Bests so there are zero complaints. We are definitely looking forward to the 2023 season.
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.
TenRyu Rayz Spectra with the StellaTenRyu Rayz Integral with the Exist
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!
The alarm went off at 0345 and I wasn’t having any of it. I ended up hitting snooze twice. We were out the door by 0515 and stepped into the river at 0720. The starting temperature of the air was 48F while the stream temp was 72F. Needless to say, we both wore hoodies this morning.
First cast! I felt a butt-kicking coming on.I thought her and the dog had a plan and were working together.
I damaged my leader while rigging up at the car and only had about 8 inches of fluorocarbon to work with. I ended up stopping and tying on a new 3ft section of fluorocarbon and immediately started connecting with fish.
Due to the flood we had last May, the river had completely changed. We had not fished this section of the river at all for 2022 so we were re-learning it as we moved upstream.
Was using a new jig head and a 2 inch B-Vibe.
I wanted to try a 3 inch B-vibe in green pumpkin since I was testing a new jig head. First cast into a deeper pool and it was instant hook-up. I ended up pulling 5 fish out of that small pool. I even managed to catch my Personal Best Velox (Neosho-strain Smallmouth Bass) and was really excited.
For a river that rarely produces a fish over 2 pounds…I was happy. Most people around here will tell you that a 3-pounder is a trophy.
2020 Shimano Vanford 1000 and a Daiwa Presso ML 62 rod got the job done.
Due to other commitments we had to bail at noon. I wanted to fish all day but that wasn’t in the cards. But still, I caught several good smallmouth and may stick with the 3-inch B-vibe from now on. Out of 17 fish that I caught…only 3 were under a pound. I’d call that a good day on this section of the river.
It has been a hectic 2 weeks. The Mother-in-Law is back in the hospital so we are taking care of two households. Last weekend we completely revamped the wifes home office. Workloads have been steadily increasing for both of us as well. On a positive note, the weather has finally cooled off so I think summer is over. We desperately need some rain though and we are hoping we will get some soon.
Anyway, I got up early this morning and decided to clean and oil some of my spinning reels. I thought it would be a good opportunity to take some pictures when I was finished.
The only spinning reels that I have modified/upgraded were the Vanford and the Stradics. Upgrading the bearings to hybrid ceramics made a big difference. I also upgraded the handle knobs on a Twin Power and 2 of the Stradics. The Twin Power was super smooth out of the box so I didn’t feel the need to upgrade any bearings. The Vanfords and Stradics really benefited from upgraded bearings.
Gomexus handle knobs.
We are hoping to be able to fish the river tomorrow as we both need to get out and away for awhile. As usual, I will post a blog if we do! Thanks for reading.
The wife and I had been looking for a more compact stove. We didn’t want a backpacking stove per se, just something smaller than what we had been using. We came across a YouTube video about this type of stove so we decided to try it.
Standard Butane canister next to stove case.
We like the concept as well as the size. It puts out 8000 BTU’s which is sufficient for our needs. This stove is designed to run on butane but we have an adapter that lets us use propane if necessary. Why butane? Because it’s much cheaper…I purchased 8 cans for $8.99! And butane works just fine during the warmer months. With the appropriate adapters, we can run any of our stoves off of propane, butane or isobutane. It’s nice to have options.
This should work well for us. Space is at a premium in our Subarus so every little effort to downsize without losing functionality is helpful. Hopefully we will be able to put it to use soon when the weather cools down a bit.
The wife has every Monday off for the rest of the year so I decided to take a day off too. We talked and decided that we should go back to the Chambers Spring Road Access to the Illinois River in Arkansas and the Elk River outside of Noel Missouri. Neither one of us had caught Smallmouth bass in Missouri so we made a day of it.
Old Chambers Spring Road BridgeRockfish!What are the odds?Illinois river
We stopped at Chambers Spring Road Access just to see if we could get access to the river and wade-fish here. Yes we can! At least if we head upstream. We ended up catching 5 fish here before we decided to head on up to the Elk River. Our goal was catch smallmouth in Missouri and we weren’t going to get it done by fishing in Arkansas.
It didn’t take us long to reach the Mount Shira Access on the Elk River.
First things first…we made coffee.The river was really low but that was to be expected.
It was a good trip and we had fun. We both caught Smallmouth bass in Missouri so that was great, which brings my total up to 4 states that I’ve caught Smallmouth in this year. The total catch of the day was 17 and 2 of them were decent. The sun was intense at 94F and we are both tired of summer. This access point gets a lot of traffic and we picked up 2 bags of trash on the way out. Even Zip spent an inordinate amount of time swimming in the river and he slept most of the way home.
I have a couple of gear review updates coming soon so stay tuned for those.
The weather forecast called for a low temp in the 40’sF so we decided to go fishing. We left the house at 0445 and arrived at the river at 0645. It was a little chilly to say the least. We donned our raincoats over the normal wet wading gear we use to add a small layer of warmth until the sun came up high enough to warm the river valley.
I surprised myself with how this picture turned out!
I opted to use the TenRyu Rayz Spectra RZS51LL spinning rod and a 2022 Daiwa Exist LT2000S-P spinning reel. Both worked flawlessly and were a pleasure to fish with.
A well balanced outfit.
We didn’t bother taking fish pictures as we weren’t catching anything of decent size. I think 12 went about a pound or a little more. Our total catch for the day was 86 so it’s obvious how many were dinks. They were fun to catch in current, but we would’ve liked some bigger fish. It was still great to get out and enjoy the day though.
As I sit here typing this blog post, Zip is curled up at my feet sound asleep. It takes days like this where we cover several miles of river before he’s completely worn out. We could tell that he was glad to get out too.
The first day at camp, we fished for about an hour without ever getting a bite. We were both using titanium leaders since we anticipated catching quite a few Pike. I switched over to a 20# fluorocarbon leader and immediately hooked a smallmouth bass. At that point my son switched over to the same setup. We knew it would be risky and decided to chance it. We ended up catching 6 Pike over the duration and only had one break-off.
We caught several smallmouth in this range.First Walleye of the trip.
I’ve never spent much time chasing Walleye and when my son started catching them, I asked him what his technique was and tried my best to duplicate it. He definitely has the touch since he caught twice as many as I did. He ended up trying hard to put me on good Walleye and I reciprocated by trying to put him on good smallmouth.
I’ve made several trips up to the Boundary Waters in LateSpring/Early Summer and the fishing was fast and furious. The last several trips I’ve taken in early September were mediocre. Fish just weren’t where I expected them to be. We fished some amazing water without any success.
Our most productive areas to fish were above and below Beaver dams. I’m assuming the oxygenated water had a big factor in that. We could fish the entire shoreline of a small lake and catch two fish, yet at the dams we would catch 10-12.
And true to form, we both packed too much fishing gear. We primarily used a 3/16th ounce jighead and a 4 inch curly tail grub in green pumpkin. That combination caught all of our fish except two. Next time I will pare things down A LOT.
I did have a reel malfunction though. My Shimano Stradic drag gave out which cost me a fish. I surmised that the clip ring had disengaged from the clicker on the spool support shaft. When I returned home I tore into it and confirmed my suspicion. It was an easy fix.
As stated before, conditions were tough and we earned every fish caught. We generally fished for about 5 hours a day and spent the rest of the time in camp just kicking back and talking. Something we rarely have time to do these days and it was nice to catch up as well as strengthening a bond. I will definitely make more time for that in the future.
It was good to see how our son had taken to canoe travel and the skills he had developed and honed over the five trips he has taken. He is a top notch camper and canoeist and is getting better at fishing. There will come a time where I will not be able to make trips like this anymore and it is safe to say that he will carry the mantle forward and pass it on to future family.
Velox Seeker 