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Outing report from Bruce Wilks

The Devils River Trip was a excellent one, everyone caught fish all three days, along with many of us caught good numbers and good average size... Lots of smallies and largemouth bass... Also me, Chris, and Ken caught large mouth exceeding 4 pounds plus... Chris caught two big LM, I caught one big large mouth, and Ken caught a really nice one on his home built 3wt rod on Dolan Creek...! Ken said it was the biggest fresh water fish he has ever caught and he did it on his 3wt, which he built for $87...!!!

Sat most of the day Doug, Tommy and Ken were on the upper most pool on Dolan and they said ken was making a lot of verbal noise and getting very excited during his 3wt fight with the big LM...:-) They all three had an excellent day Sat on Dolan Creek... Lots of Smallies and large mouths... Keith caught good numbers of both LM and SM both days, along with Sat evening he lost count catching them on a weedless black popper over the weeds beds. Roy caught his first smallie and and good numbers of fish... Don and keith caught good numbers of fish on poppers while popping over the weed beds in the mornings and evenings...

I caught 14 fish on Friday 22 fish on Sat and 5 on Sunday, with most of them Smallies from 13" to 18", multiple LM from 12" to 17", with one LM on Sat at 23". I would say that 80% of those were hunt, sight cast, present, strip pause stripe, the take, set the hook, the fight and landed to hand... Sometimes a little jigging and wiggle with the rod tip was required to get them to take the fly. I saw and sight cast to more than 100 nice fish... I love stalking and sight casting to fish... I had one really big smallie break off after I hooked it, then it went under a big boulder... I could not get it out from under the boulder due to the hydraulic from the downstream current flow and my line was rubbing on the edge of the rock, then broke in the thicker part of the leader, which was shreaded... I can't think of anyone who caught and landed any smallies bigger than 19", but I could be wrong... Some bigger ones were hooked but not landed... My big LM was a sight cast next to a big boulder. I could see this big LM halfway sticking its body out from under the big boulder, then she would dart out and eat a minnow, go back under the boulder then do it again... I watched her do it three times, then positioned my yak for a cast with Jon's-flippin-bug, bouncing it off the boulder and let it sink to the bottom of about 2' of water on the downstream side... I would very slowly jig with short strips, pause and strip again. I had to repeat this three times before she decided to dart out and suck it in to her big mouth... The fight was on, which turned out to be the best fight I have ever had from a Large Mouth Bass on a fly rod! This fish did not want to give up... It ran four times in medium fast current and tried very hard to get under the boulder, but I was able to keep it from going under and land this fish..., even got this fish on the reel of my new Lamson Konic on my new 7.5' 6wt ADG... I can't wait to catch Redfish and Specs on this rod... I was making short, medium and long distance cast accurately with this rod the whole trip... Only time I got my 9' 8wt rod out was fishing below the falls for striper... Speaking of stripers Clint caught and landed a 6lb plus striper on the fly below the falls... John also caught another striper my guess was 8 to 10 lbs, maybe more, but he was ripping a big top water stick bait with multiple treble hooks with a bait casting rod...

I had a great time helping Pete Walker with his casting on Sat, giving me a chance to practiced my non-professional casting instructions (teaching). On Sunday morning fished with Pete and did a little Non-professional guiding while helping Pete Walker with knots, and a catching a couple fish... I also helped him with his kick pontoon row/kickboat in walking it up stream to the big pool upriver on the Devils, along with while coming back to camp, he needed help in some fast water narrow split in the river with some rapids and fairly deep pools below the big pool... I hope and pray when I reach 72, that I am still at it like pete... His casting did noticeably improve even while casting from his kick boat... Me and Pete had a good time together on Sunday morning, but it was the slow morning of fishing for everyone due to a cool front and storm that blew in Late Sat night, early Sunday morning. Pete caught 2 and I only caught 5 on Sunday... I did not see many fish on Sunday, most of them were small if you don't count carp and gar... They did not come up for poppers early morning, along with they seem to not be biting much even subsurface...

My favorite part was when me and Ken late Sat walked up to the upper most pool of Dolan creek and he caught a 11" LM standing on the bank in the upper pool doing short cast, and high stick drifts to a really big (24" plus) Smallie, so when he was fighting the little LM the big Smallie was trying to eat it, That big smallie chased and sucked in the large mouth fly and all, then Ken had a 15 sec fight until the Smallie figured out it was a much bigger fight than a 11" LM should give, so she spit it out, then ken landed the little LM... When she eat the LM all that was showing was its tail... It was exciting and funny... Ken caught 4 other smallies and I caught 7 in the 13" to 15" range on our Sat evening walk up Dolan Creek... My catch for Sat all day was 14 smallies, 7LM... and 1 sunfish... I think biggest fish this trip was Ken or Chris, and I would come in 3rd, all were LM bass... Not sure who caught the biggest Smallie...???

Lots of fish, lots of stories and good memories, along with good food and a really good time with good friends, along with made some new friends with David, Pete, and Doug... Lots of BS, some drinking and joking shots with all..

I exchanged flies I tied and stories with John our host at the Nature Conservancy property where we stayed on the Devils River and as usual he was a most gracious host. He had to leave early late on Sat due to an important event back in Alpine, which means he trusted us as a group for Sat evening and Sunday to do all the right things... We as a group did all the right things including cleaning everything better than we had found it, along with hauling 5 big garbage bags out with us... Many other stories about all the others in the group. All in all it was a great trip and we will be going back next year...

Tight Lines My Friends, Bruce