Hobby Sports

In the morning The Major took me to breakfast after he had finished his PT. We headed south to Fort Hood. The Major had some business t take care of and asked if I wanted to tag along. I said sure I have nothing better to do, I can at least check out the base. We picked up two of his captians and one of his sargents to recon part of the base where they needed to plan a training exercise. This allowed me to see one of their urban training mock cities. Built in the 80s, the mock city is modeled after a typical Eastern European town. The Army has now converted it to look more Middle Eastern by adding Arabic signs and a mosque. "Looks like Bosnia now," I said. Eventually they were done and The Major handed me his keys to his truck.

I drove from Fort Hood to Nacogdoches borrowing my friend’s Dodge Ram Pick up. The truck ran great I actually liked driving it. I’m glad I visited my friend and drove the four hours as I saw some pretty country that I would otherwise never have seen. Ever so often while driving on the 7, a historical marker sign in 1 mile would be posted. After passing a few I decided to stop at one and take a picture of it if it was interesting. I was thinking it would be something cool like “Davy Crokett did this here…” When I stopped at a convenient one, I was thoroughly disappointed. I do not recall what the marker said but I was not impressed and wished that I had just continued driving.

I arrived at about 4PM at the range as I missed the barracks. At the range I saw a LMVT parked at the edge of the first range. Around it was a few of the reservists from Oklahoma. I jumped out of the truck and said hello. I talked with a few, some asking me what I did as I had a DoD sticker on the truck. They must have taught I was some contractor or something as I had unshaven (I forgot to pack my razor and was too lazy and cheap to get one) with longer hair. I let them know I was nothing more than a civilian and the truck belonged to a friend. I went to say hello to Paul who was at the other range. Paul let me know he was going to open up the barracks. So I drove back to the LMVT and talked to one of the Captains. I asked if I could take a look at the truck. The Good Ole Boy said “Hell you wanna git in it.” I replied hell yeah. He opened it up for me and I sat at the driver’s seat and checked out the layout.

After looking over the truck I headed out to the barracks to meet Paul. He showed me around and let me know where everything is. There were already 15 Army Reservists occupying the bottom bunks. Paul let me know about the clubhouse and let me know only one person was staying there. We drove to see it. After showing it to me he asked where I wanted to stay. I figured the house was fine since I was already there. He gave me the key and took off after a brief chat about the game on his property. I unpacked my laptop and noticed that I wasn’t receiving a WiFi signal. I drove back to the range and found Paul who let me know internet is only at the barracks. So I asked if I could stay there instead. No problems.

When I got went back to the barracks another Captain showed me around which bunks were free. He asked if I wanted to sleep in the same room with a bunch of stinky, dirty army guys, and if I did not he could move his men all into another room. I let him know you don’t need to accommodate me for anything and I’ll just pick a bunk. As the reservists started to make their way back, they introduced themselves.

Later on in the night as more people made there way into the barracks. Two guys dressed in Magpul t-shirts rolling their pelican cases with Magpul stickers. They entered the room I was staying in. I walked in to introduce myself and they let me know they both worked for Magpul. I had thought one looked somewhat familiar, I then recognized him from the precision rifle trailer.

Eventually after some introductions and BSing with everyone we called it a night.

More good stuff from France. If you like fine doubles and fine guns Laguiole may interest you as well. Each are handmade by one knifemaker from start to finish. Every knife has the artisans engraving on the spine of the blade, each unique to the individual knifemaker. Its like their signature. The more I read or look into these knives the more fascinating I become of them.

After coming up with the Salamander fly I thought it could make a good deep water swimming frog pattern as well.  So this is what Ive come up with so far.  If all goes to plan testing on both flies will be this weekend if not earlier.

Another Pig Redear on a Five Weight.  Weighed just a hair under 2lbs.

Even with wacky weather this past week, Chul and I hit MVL once more before he sets off to the Tahoe area to fish some "real" trout waters.  With rain, overcast and cold weather we were hoping the bass would not be lock jawed.  Theoretically the bass should be still in the three stages of the spawn but given the early warm weather this spring I was not sure if they spawned early and are now finished.  Speaking with the boys at the marina, the bass we still spawning and the bluegill were just beginning. 

I gave Chul the Sage DS2 590-2 I built him and he fished that first with a gurgler.  Armed with my RPLX 10 wt, I started with a monster rattle popper Webb gave me.  The Charleton Reel, I was using was loaded with an ancient shooting head.  So ancient that the running line wasnt even integrated into the head.  This set up sucks.  Do they even still make set ups like this?  I certainly hope not.  I bored rather quickly with the 10 wt, as I usually do when I fish big rods.  So I switched to my recently repaired T&T 5wt.  Ive said it before and I will say it again, I absolutely love this rod.  Going from the 10 to 5 wt was like night and day.  I felt like I was casting air.  After seeing some bass in the shallows Chul switched to his 6 wt and sinking line.

The Days Arsenal.

Chul continued to get short struck until he finally landed a trout sized juvenile bass on an olive clouser.  I had snagged my Gourmet Silverside Minnow fly on some submerged structure thereby losing that fly, so I switched to a lightly dumbell eyed  purple wooley bugger.  Within a few cast I got hit hard.  I yanked him to the surface and it was another monster Redear.  Unlike the last time I caught one here, this one had a prominent red mark behind this gill spot.  This one measured just barely under 2lbs.  Although I come to MVL for the bass, I will never turn down monster panfish.  Both of us would missed a few more hits here in this location until we decided we should move.  The boat was crapping out on us so we had to go back to the marina and get a new one.  Very disappointing.

From then on, the rest of the day it shut down.  Literally.  Hundreds of casts and various flies produced not even a single strike.  The sun was starting to poke out of the clouds by then.  For whatever reason the fish became lock jawed and would follow the fly for a bit but refused to honor us with a take.  We did find two other locations that held monster bass.  I would guess at least 10 lbs maybe bigger.  Its always hard to judge fish size when they are in the water, they always look smaller than they actually are.  Towards the end of the day we did find a bluegill nest with at least 10 huge bluegills in the immediate area.  They were fighting, mating, spawning, or protecting but none wanted to open their damn mouth.  I have no ideal what happened to the water and why it just shut down.  Although the fishing sucked after having to come back to the marina, we at least managed not to get skunked.  We found 2 new locations where some of the monster bass are located.  Chul got to fish his new rod and I managed to fish two of my favorite rods that are now finally back in my arsenal (Sage RPLXi 890-3 and my T&T Helix 5wt S).