May 21, 2012 - Brooks Bouldin

My son, Brad and I fished the Brazos River below Lake Whitney last Tuesday with Andy Moreau. Andy runs an airboat that will run over damp rocks, a necessity if you want to avoid having to drag any other kind of boat over long stretches of river with a couple of inches of water.

They didn’t let any water out of the dam while we were on the water. It would have been easier to run another boat if they had been generating but a rise in the water level can turn the fish off. We didn’t have a strike until around 2 P.M. So around 11:00 A.M. we decided to throw a rope fly at some of the gar that cruise the deeper pools. If they were swimming toward us , they would follow the fly back to the rod tip or until the boat spooked them. But if we cast out in front of them when they were swimming perpendicular to the fly line, they were more likely to attack the fly aggressively.

We caught two smaller ones and then Brad caught one that came above his belly button when the tail touched the deck. From 2 P.M. until 5, we caught about 8 bass and a couple of sunfish. The water was a little murky and there was quite a bit of floating moss. Andy says the moss tends to lessen and the water clears as the weather gets hotter. The rains of the previous weekend probably contributed to the water being cloudy. Andy is a cancer survivor and supporter of Reel Recovery. He is also a nice guy to spend a day with on the water.