Lake Barrett 5/2/09

Saturday Scott and I got a chance to fish the Barrett opener for the second year. The weather reports were all doom and gloom even up until 3 a.m. when I had to get up to be at Scott's house. All my usual Internet weather sites, and widgets, predicted rain and fairly high winds. It was going to be a down to the minute decision whether it was on or not. But not only did it not rain, at all, the wind was only bad for a short time, and eventually it was a pretty nice, hot day.

I'll skip the drama leading up to our arrival at the lake, barely in time to be the last vehicle in the first "train" in. But given the drama before we fished, the rest of the trip seemed all the more relaxed. We, literally, had all day to fish, and we weren't catching a ride on Mick's boat, so there was no rush to suit up and run to the dock. We parked on Pigs Point, with a bunch of other tubers, and kayakers, and began the process that goes along with an all-day tubing trip - waders, boots, rod assembly, inflating and stocking the tubes...

Barrett is known for it's large catch counts, so beside the regular pressure not to get skunked, there's the added pressure of making respectable numbers. Being fly fishermen, we really can't compete with the gear guys on numbers, nor do I care to, but it is possible to catch a much larger amount of fish than on most other local lakes.

I think Scott was the last person from the first train to get on the water, but neither of us were too anxious about the day. We kicked out, picked rods, and stripped off line. We hadn't even discussed a plan really. We just kicked out and started casting around in a pretty unfocused manner.


Eventually I suggested we make a pretty long kick over to a point at which we some success on our last trip. This area is point, cove, point, cove for hundreds of yards with plenty of great structure, like dead trees, boulders, reeds, weeds, and ledges. It's as though it was designed to hold fish. It didn't take long for the first fishes of the morning to come aboard. My second fish was my first ever crappie, he kind of gave up the fight pretty quick, but nice fish. Scott picked up a bass or two, maybe three, right off, and not too long after a big crappie.


My intention was to target bass on this trip, but first priority is getting the skunk off, and getting some fish on board. I was throwing toward a dead branch sticking out of the water, and kept feeling ticks on the retrieve. Since I was fishing a "meat whistle" with a good sized hook, I figured some aggressive bluegill were attacking my big fly. I switched to my bluegill setup and a #10 white woolly bugger. For about 25 - 30 minutes it was nearly a bluegill a cast. Scott came over and joined in. I decided I'd fish to 20 bluegill and spend the rest of the day hunting bass. It didn't take but a few more minutes to reach that goal.

I switched back to my bass rod, and the "crawdad meat whistle" and worked around a couple points, and coves to no result. I'd lost track of Scott. I thought he'd leap-frogged me and was a cove ahead of me, so I hurried around a point to try to catch sight of him. It turned out he'd gone back the way we came. I didn't get close enough to chat again until I met him at the truck for lunch.

I worked a little island with a frankenfly I had in my box. I'd lost the meat whistle I had on, and felt like experimenting. The fly had a cone head, a black bugger body, and a purple silicone curly tail. A real mutt. But I cast it toward the weedy island, and it got hit pretty hard off the end of a tiny point. I immediately kicked away from the structure to keep the fight in open water. The fish flipped out of the water and I could see I was dealing with a decent fish. I lead it back and forth, trying to wear it out, and it put up a dogged fight. I had too much line in my lap to try to wind in and get the fish on the reel, so I just had to give and take line with my hands. Eventually, I was able to lead the bass, an easy 3-pounder, to the side of my tube. It sat there, mouth agape, while I probably did the same thing. Before I could reach my thumb into its mouth, though, it gave a last head shake and threw my fly. It even stayed where it was, mouth open, and if I'd been quicker I might have been able to lip it, but just then it turned and swam out of sight. That would have been a day-maker if I'd been able to photograph it. Of course I worked that island for all I was worth, but only ended up with a couple bluegill for my efforts.

I lost the frankenfly, and Scott, so I tied on another meat whistle, and worked my way back towards where we'd launched. Surprisingly, the bass started to respond to my meat whistle, and I was able to make a steady pick of about 7 bass on the way back to the truck. This was a most satisfying development, as my intention this year is to work on my bass "game."


Lunch was a Trader Joe's sandwich, water, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and straight back into the water. We'd kind of missed our window to catch the 2 p.m. train out, so it was going to be the 4 p.m. train. I worked a cove near where we launched with all the gusto I had left, and nearly accidentally caught 3 more bass. But soon it was obvious I was out of gas. I kept losing flies in the reeds, and it wasn't long before my last meat whistle was gone. I grew tired of retying every few casts, and even though we had a good hour before the 4 p.m. train was to escort us out, I called it a day. At least we'd be able to break down and pack at a leisurely pace. Fish numbers ended relatively respectably - though later Scott told me his cousin and his fishing partner boated something like 186 bass - we were able to go home and collapse satisfied we'd had a good day. My GPS recorded 8 hours, 59 minutes, and 45 seconds of fishing time. From the time I left my house, to my exhausted return was bit over 14 hours.