Hobby Sports

I woke up Thursday morning at 3am and for whatever reason I could not get back to sleep. As I tried and tried to fall back to sleep I laid there in bed watching the sunrise around 5am.  By 6am I was fed up and packed the Rover with my carp gear and headed out to the local trash water.  I thought about packing the waders but I was too lazy to get it out and just took my wellingtons.  I later regretted that when I arrived at the water.  Water is high and muddy which is surprising for this time of year and since we are in a drought. Where the hell is all this water coming from?  With all this water it was going to be a pointless endeavor without my waders.  The water is up to the tules and on the far bank the vegetation is overgrown.  Despite that I managed to cross the river to the far bank as it would be my best shot at a fish.  The fish must be spawning as there was a lot of ruckus coming from the tules and there was a lot of fish along the bank rolling around.  I did manage to finally hook up on one that ran me around until I got too cute and popped the fly out of its mouth from pinching the line too tight with my trigger finger.  I got out of there about 8:30 when I realized it was pointless.
Later in the night one of our local forums which is moderated one of the members of The Calico Syndicate hosted a fly tying night, Man Craft Night III.   It was great fun and good to see some familiar faces and meet some guys I only knew by their forum handle.  We were also rewarded with a 17 minute teaser for their upcoming DVD towards the end of the night. The movie was supposed to be out already but has been delayed but when it comes out I plan on picking it up.  I did manage to tie a few shad patterns for Perris on Saturday. 

After arriving at his house at 7:15, Ed took me to a park near his house.  Ed was armed with his gear rod with a plug and me with my 3 weight.  My target were the bluegills that are abundant in this city park.  The moment I arrived a group of youngsters were fighting a palm sized blue once I passed them.  Good sign.  My first cast was not.  On my backcast I instantly caught myself on an overhanging branch.  My set up was a stimulator with an aggravator dropper.  Once the sun went down I missed two bluegills that took the dry.   It was shallow and once I saw the dry get hit I set the hook but my trailing fly got hooked up on the rocks preventing a proper hook set.  Later I missed a huge fish. I felt him take the fly but I set the hook too weakly and after a head shakes it was off.  Judging by the wake it caused I concluded that it must have been a carp.  Ed had two weak strikes throughout the night but no hook ups either.  There was alot of boiling which is always exciting.  We ended at 9:40PM.