Little Red 11/26

[TWiles]

Crystal and I had originally planned a several day getaway to Lobo Landing for our Thanksgiving break,  but after budgeting, and work schedule changes, we only managed a one night/one day fishing cram session.  I drove straight from a morining on the Caney, picked up Crystal in Memphis, and we were in our Cabin around 9:00.  As always, this place felt just like home...and I was soon wishing for the couple extra days that we had sadly cancelled a few weeks before coming.  The winter half-off rates were great....at $75/night in a 2 bed cabin or $100/night for a lodge pole, A-frame 3 bedroom cabin, you couldn't beat the deal. (the weekend rates are still the same).

We decided to float the canoe past the zoo of anglers to our paradise of isolation and brown trout heaven. The only discouraging factor was that the normal flows were gone, and they had generated only 2 hours in the entire week...leaving our once favorite riffles as mere trickles.  Plenty of fish were still crammed into their usual haunts, but getting a good drift was much more challenging without the moving water.  We made the best of it, and had another great getaway.  This river is quite unique, and will always be a place that we'll revisit.





Ready to begin the day with late start:





Crystal with a nice bow:







Here's a first.  While wading, I had this little 'bow following my ankles, and gobbling sowbugs as I stirred up gravel.  I'd "San Juan Shuffle" my feet, and he'd bump up to my boots to grab the dozens of sowbugs that drifted up.  The little devil on my shoulder told me to lower my soft hackle HE into the water, and he grabbed it in a second.  When I unhooked him, he went right back downstream of me.



Paddlin' back upstream at dusk:

[Gofisher]

You're a lucky man Travis. Glad you and Crystal got away and had some fun. Stay safe...Gordie

[MikeA]

Never been on the little red. It looks like Supreme water if you know what I mean.

[TWiles]

Little Red
It's a good'un.  Super fun, but especially in April and November. You definitely have a shot at some good fish in February, but it's fishing on high water requires quite a bit of coordination to slap streamers at the moss beds, logs and multiple docks.   It's channel averages a bit more narrow than the Caney, and its banks are filled with waterswept snags.  And it fishes alot like the Caney--in that it's filled with average stocker bows and it hides it's big browns well (except in Nov/Dec).

 It's night bite looks like it would be AWESOME...already a few reports that I've heard of some great early fall night success up there.  Only problem is that it gets quite foggy, and the tree filled bluff banks tend  block out a lot of moonlight.

Here's a post quote from a fella named "UV Bug" on Wilson's site.  Crystal and I floated over the hole he's talking about.  And all I could think to myself was" I gotta get back here after dark.  Only downside is that this place is unreachable from upstream or below with a motorized boat with no generation.  Spotted some bigguns'

" But my sleep deprevation problem contiues. I have lost sleep thinking about one fish I hung. I was fishing one of the big articulated bunny leech/deer hair/rubber legs streamers I tied up a while ago. It was just starting to get a little grey and was fishing at a tailout that drops into a deeper run, which shall remain nameless in the intrest of the rather large brown that still roams the area. I had caught a couple of fish, one was 18 inches or so, but nothing remarkable. I was just about fed up with casting that fly, as it has the areodynamics and castability of a dead muskrat. I decided ti was getting light, so I would stick it out a little longer till I could start to sight fish. While the fly started to swing, I felt a bump, not what I expected from a large fish, and drove the hook home. Right away I knew it was something VERY solid that had some heft. The fish didn't really panic, it just got down to the bottom and sulked for a bit, occasianly making some huge head shakes. I moved down to try to get below the fish, and when I did, it swam upstream. I say swam and not ran, because at this point the fish really wasn't too worried. I think I was scared to put too much pressure on it. I finally remembered I had on 12lb test instead of 5 and once the fish was upstream of me, I put the pressure on. I laid the rod down sidways and really put the but to work. The top 2/3 of that rod was pointed straight at the fish, and it was bent dang near to the cork........then the fish realized it was hooked. The fish came up to the top of the shallow water and kinda wallowed around for a second, and I'm positive this thing would have taped on the obscene side of 30 inches, if not 35. This was followed by a smoking run downstream that took all of my fly line and pretty close to 100 yards of backing. I guess there was a big moss bed that looked attractive, cause that fish buried up in it. After about 3 min. of wallowing in the moss, the line went limp my heart sank. This fish will haunt me for a while.... All told the whole thing took about 8 or 10 min, but it felt like a lot longer. Not sure what I could have done differently, except have been armed with a 9wt rod.......I'll be back for more.
"
 
I know the fever that's got this guy rattled.   

Travis

[Steve H]

Two of my favorite quotes:

I was just about fed up with casting that fly, as it has the areodynamics and castability of a dead muskrat.

...the line went limp my heart sank. This fish will haunt me for a while...

[Kylemc]

Very nice Travis!!