Hagerman-A boy, a girl, a dog, and a bass.

Tam and Tuck and I had just completed a semi-brisk three mile jog up and back on the Meadow Ponds Trail, and decided to walk in on the Crawfish Pond across from the new Visitor Center at Hagerman.  Less than five hundred yards off the road, this little jewel gets amazingly little fishing pressure, and I have never visited her without getting a few bites.  This brief vignette features me catching a little bass, Tucker getting a kiss, and Tam serving as photographer.  The pier is about eight or ten feet above the water.

A Brazos Surprise

Memorial Day Weekend of 2011 saw the Brazos below PK blasted by 108 degree temps and 40+mph winds straight out of the south.  Not exactly idyllic conditions for fly fishing.  Nevertheless, since Tam and her fam had headed north to the casino at  Burkburnett,  I thought I'd give it a whirl.   I drove through the fire ravaged areas along Hiway 16, near the Hills Above PK.  Most of those houses were saved, but a considerable amount of pasture was torched.   To my surprise, the river was deserted.  And, furthering my surprise, there were fish to be caught.  None were large, but a couple of spotted bass pushed a pound or pound and a half.  Dozens of sunfish, not a single carp.  Then, right at dusk, I had made my way back up to the first big pool below the dam.  The wind had slacked to less than twenty, and I was able to limber up my casting stroke and bang out some longer casts.  These pics were snapped in the last fifteen minutes of fishing, and take a gander at the last fish.  Ten inches, on a yellow popping bug, in the Brazos River of Texas-a walleye.  (I had not caught a walleye since leaving Montana in 1987)  He was healthy, feisty, and released unharmed.  You never know what you will find in the Brazos.