Another journey to the New River has once again strengthened my love and respect for this fishery. John Kilday, Dave (Gaspergou), my brother Jay, and I enjoyed a great weekend of camping surrounded by amazing scenery and gorgeous weather.
I blame all mishaps of the weekend on John's foolish choice of eating a banana on the raft right at the beginning of our first float. I teased him, letting him know that many captains would not take him out to sea, knowing that he had brought such a bad luck omen with him. We laughed it off and began sneering "BananaDammit" every time something went wrong.
Here are the following mishaps of the weekend:
1)John broke his 10 wt BVK---Again. It's beginning to become a habit. It wasn't entirely his fault, though. On a backcast with one of my 10" flies that looks like a baby gorilla, some heavy steel of a 6-0 hook cracked the graphite.
2) John's trolling motor slipped as we rowed down some rapids, cracking the clamp that fastens to the transom. This splashed the trolling motor into the churning water. Luckily, I was able to retrieve it by the electrical cord before it drifted away.
3) On Saturday morning, eager for an all-day float, Dave's Nissan would not crank. The steering wheel locked, and the key would not engage the ignition switch. This initiated trips to Advanced AutoParts, ordering of parts, waiting hours for the campsite manager and a local mechanic to help us get him mobile once again. All this mess led to Dave staying an extra night to have an auto dealer make a new key; leaving Dave to cancel work on Monday.
Poor guy only had a few hours of fishing time---only a fraction of the hours he drove to get to the river and back home.
4) On Sunday, my trolling motor battery slid under the frame of my boat and blasted a charge that ignited an electrical fire and melted the lead terminals ruining a brand new battery. A steel wingnut landed on my Simms Boat Bag, and it quickly melted a hole right through it.
Here's what went right:
Good Autumn brew beer, and perfect weather.
Exploring New floats, and spotting some nice muskies in some fishy water.
Dozens of shots at nice muskies in clear water. It was so neat to see them appear out of the depths. Many fast follows and a few close calls and grabs on the figure 8's. Also I spotted two fish over 50" that closed in on the fly. There's something so haunting about seeing a fish so large coming at you. These two were probably the largest I've ever seen; I definitely blew my chance when I snagged some weeds last minute on an agressive pursuit. The beast veered off when I believe he would have taken the fly...minus the weeds.
Kilday caught a good fish in fast shallow water, and Jay caught two. All fish were close to 39 inches and full of fight.
Getting to see J4 get his first fly-caught Muskie. It clobbered the fly right at boatside, just before we were going to paddle down some churning shoals. Pure chaos as the fish launched a straight vertical head-shaking jump as we struggled to veer upstream to stabilize and not tip the Crawdad.
Sharing the boat with my brother Jay for a day, and seeing him catch his first two muskies on bucktails. He gets as fired up as me when he saw these fish follow...and that’s saying a lot. He froze on his first follow out of panick—I told him how to speed it up, and be sure to hookset back toward the fish if he hits. Hours later, he gives a sudden loud shout, “MUSKIE!!!!!” followed by leaping a thrashing fish in the clear water. He teased the fish in, and hooked up perfectly.
I hope someday, I can take a few of the TrophyTN group to fish here. I know it’s a haul, but in my opinion, this is one of the BEST fisheries in our entire region, and it’s worth the trouble it takes to get here.
A few more shots from the floats.
Travis
