This should continue happening most every early morning as long as the water is blasting from the lake at this rate..

Told j-moe couldn't get it to play but worked now. That's my kind of fishing.

Enjoyed the video. Lots of "white water" action!

J-Moe and I met the new day in the spillway below the dam at Lake Somerville looking to catch a hybrid striper or two on the fly. Just before daylight on most days the hybrid stripers and whitebass make a fast and furious dash up into the raging water chasing baitfish up against the rocks. The feeding frenzy lasts only a short time while the shad are in the area. On this morning the action lasted about twenty minutes and then it turned off like a switch had been thrown.

Hybrids seem to love that turbulent water and will really put that strong current to their advantage when hooked. Pound for pound in that fast moving water a hybrid striper is about the strongest fighter I've caught and quite a challenge on a wimpy fly pole. A three pound hybrid is about all I can handle well on my current gear. For anything bigger I'll need to move up if I'm to turn a really big hybrid and have any hope of bringing one to hand. These are the fish that will wreck your light weight fly gear and your casting arm as well..

Generally speaking if you can keep a hybrid on the line through that first big run than you have a good chance of landing it. A five pound hybrid striper will take line like a runaway freight train. The second fish I hooked on Tuesday morning made a run that I couldn't turn and threw the hook in less then ten seconds. No telling how big it was or even what it was for sure but the excitement of that moment lives on in a memory now.

I caught about six fish in what seemed like ten minutes and all at once it stopped. The fish moved on as they always do which is the important lesson to learn about this type of fishing.

The angler can be doing everything right but the fish are simply not there yet. My fishing buddy ( J-Moe) on this morning standing just down the shore from where I was, doing exactly the same thing I was doing, didn't catch a single fish! And by the time he moved closer to where I was fishing the hybrids & whitebass had moved on. I caught only one more whitebass about thirty minutes after the first six caught earlier in rapid secession.

I'm sure if we had more time using different gear & tactics we could have found a few more fish or by waiting until they passed our way again. But it was a Tuesday and we both have to work for a living..

J-Moe & I were back at it Friday AM

Rather odd morning.. J-Moe was doing pretty much the same thing as I but until he started using one of my streamers the fish weren't interested. I started using the same fly I had done so well on Tuesday morning but had no takers on it.. I changed to another version of the streamer and started catching pretty much from the start.. Not as fast and furious as the mornings had been but nearly as good in numbers.. The hybrids were further out and scattered or so it seemed.. no reel big "keeper" hybrids but a few good whitebass..

Glad y'all got into a few i caught another real mix bag yesterday of smallmouth stripers sandbass lmb and one real pretty goo. The bite up here has been pretty consistent for most of the day but like y'all are seeing that first and last 30 minutes of light it has been furious action.

Hybrids are still at it below the dam in the spillway..

Fishing gets a little squirrelly on the full moon as the fish move and feed to a odd rhythm. Last Saturday the early morning fishing in the spillway was very slow and it wasn't until nearly 8am before the fish started feeding based on the catch rate I observed. The best "catching" occured much later in the day around mid afternoon from what reports I heard.
I skipped Sunday and Monday making it out to the ranch on both of those days before returning to the spillway early Tuesday morning. The first cast of the day resulted in a nice whitebass or hybrid but it was still too dark to see well enough to positively identify that fish on camera.
Several hits and misses followed with three more fish to hand before they moved back to the deep. What is strange is that standing very near to me, throwing the same type of fly didn't result in anything to hand for my buddy on this morning run. I cannot account for the difference in catch rate in a situation like this but I have a very hard time believing that I'm doing anything different or much better than any other fishermen. I'm just lucky that way I guess..

Great vids! Yall are really getting into them out there!

Twice in one day..

Hot August days are upon us here in the south but that just makes fishing in the early morning more enjoyable. Thursday's run to the Lake Somerville spillway was ahead of schedule but getting an early start didn't result in more fish on this morning. With the half moon overhead the fish made their appearance a full twenty minutes later then usual..

I've been making early morning runs to the spillway at Lake Somerville to fly fish for whitebass and hybrid stripers and having some success with versions of a streamer just like this...