Pics or it Didn't Happen!

There are times when determination takes over and there is no turning back. I stepped out of the house armed with nothing but my 8 wt Cabelas RLS+ whom I have decided to name “Bone crusher.” I had bug spray, a bottle of water and my box of larger flies in my back pack and I was out the door. I began the short drive out to Cache Creek on a mission to catch Smallmouth bass with my fly rod. I decided that I would call my buddy to see if he wanted to join me out there and that is when I realized… I forgot my cell phone! 

I am old enough to remember a time without cell phones but I am also young enough to feel naked without it. For a second I panicked but then I felt relieved to have a fishing trip with no interruptions. But then I realized that if I caught a smallie, I would have no proof! After all, “pics or it didn’t happen,” right?! 

I arrived at Cache Creek at around 6:30. I planned on fishing until sundown. I started the day with a grasshopper pattern. I threw it out onto the water and SMASH! I went to tighten my line but it went slack. Apparently they weren’t as interested as I originally thought. The second and third casts were similar but for some reason they weren’t actually biting down on it. After a few more casts I swithched over to a thin mint but no takers. I decided on a frog colored popper since I could hear a lot of frogs around the cattails. First cast I had another strike but once again it didn’t actually bite down. I stuck to this popper for a while and would often see them pursue it or come up to look at it but they soon lost interest. I also tried a streamer pattern and a large yellow popper but I ended up losing that popper in the gold colored weeds after it got stuck without me realizing it. It was kind of a different process swinging the larger poppers but I learned how to do it fairly quickly. 

At one point I went back to the popper and was casting into the cattails. I could see something swimming through and around the cattails and just figured it was a bass or an otter. I continued to cast when all of a sudden I heard one of the loudest splashes into the water that I have ever heard! Now I’m a MAN, but I’m not too proud to say that this splash freaked me the HELL OUT!! I didn’t leave immediately because I was terrified of the splash, I left because I figured the splash scared away all of the fish! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I made my way downstream because my buddy told me about a different hole that also had smallies in it. As the sun went down, the mosquitoes came out but the top water bite also began! I could see the fish eating something off of the top so I tossed my popper out And immediately got bumps. Unfortunately there were no hook ups so I figured they might be baby bass and switched to a small red panfish popper. Guess what they were? Panfish! And the panfish popper produced my first fish of the day, a small green sunfish. I was happy to beat the skunk but cast out a bit deeper in hopes of a smallie. Nothing but small bites and so I cast out for the panfish which are no match for bonecrusher even though I did end up catching one that was a little bigger and put up a fun little fight. 

With the mosquito action picking up and the sun completely set, I decided to call it a day.  I did catch two fish but unfortunately I will have to try another day for the smallies. This does put me over the halfway mark for my panfish goal for the year. It also puts me over the 50 fish mark for the year.   No pictures of the sunfish because I forgot my phone.

Total fish= 2 Green sunfish