talked my clients into going to Lavon Dam to get into the Hybrids instead of sandies at Rowlett Creek.
got in the water at 7am. by 9am they had a limit! but, we threw back the 18's and 19's and just kept the bigger ones.
they had to have caught and released well over 50-60 Hybrids due to they used 8 dozen large minnows and who knows how many small minnows they used when we ran out of large ones. odd thing is, they caught the bigger fish on the smaller minnows!
i had minnows that were smaller than our hooks that were catching huge fish on.... some of these minnows were so small that i dont know why anyone would have purchased them? and i have no clue where they came from. people give me their left over bait all the time, so who knows.
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at one point about 10 am, i looked behind us and saw the clouds getting darker. looked at doppler on my phone and said, "ok guys fish for ten more minutes and we have to beach the boats." we beached the boats and all hell broke loose with heavy rain and small hail.... we were sittin umder the trees gettin wet still, and the rain lightened up a bit so i decided to get a new shirt out of the truck to get warmer and drier. on my way up the the concrete, underneath the rail road, i walked up on a gentelman laying down under the bridge. i saw him there ten minutes prior during the storm and though he was just laying down out of the way of the rain. but i took a double take at him due to a stream of water was falling on his face from the above rail road bridge. i walked up to him and kneeled down to see what was up. not good. irratic breathing and barely a pulse if any. every 10 seconds or so he would take a gasping breath and pupils were dialated and moving side to side and un-responsive. i called 911 within 20 seconds of walking up to him. while i was on the phone with EMS, he stopped breathing for about 30 seconds. so i rubbed his chest with my knuckle and he started breathing almost normal again. within about 2 minutes after that his eyes dialated back to normal almost and he kinda woke up. for about 2 minutes another gentelman and i tryied to keep him from tring to get up. he started to mumble something and i got out of him that he had fallen..... then he said his chest hurt really bad. then a minute later he was back to unresponsive again. right then the EMS showed up. the officer that was on the call, called me an hour later and told me he did not make it to the hospital. he had suffered a massive heart attack. I have talked with the guy a couple time at the dam before. a couple of the guys from here know him i think. i think they called him "Uncle" with no family relation. my reguards to friends and family for your loss. --->May The Fish God's Be With Him.
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after the rain had stopped, and the terrible inncident happened, i went back to my waiting clients and hit the water again. at any given moment, at least one or even both had a fish on at all times!
--->double bent rods
-Doubles were super common
started to run out of minnows, so i tied up a jig and handed it to one of the guys and taught him how to use it. -He was all smiles within 5 minutes landing a couple 4-5 lbers.
every cast produed a fish, bite, or break-off, or hanging rope.....( one of the guys loved to cast to the rope hanging from the bridge. i told him its not a good fight and it will break you off everytime, but he insisted on casting to a 1/4 inch peice of rope. out of all the places?) caught a couple sandies that we had to check, to make sure they were not Hybrids because they were so big!
----Magnum Sandies
One of the guys was new to fishing and almost every fish was a P.B. (Personal Best) -All in all, this was a great trip and they had a blast. they said their arms hurt,lol, so i did my job!
the water is almost getting warm enough for no waders.... closer time to Crappie time!----but thats another thread.....Good Job Guys! I wish i was the one being guided today..... They looked like little kids at x-mas.
After my clients left, Angler_Josh called to ask what i was doing.... "what do you think i do weather permitting?" i told him i didnt have any afternoon clients and come on down. Got in the water within minutes due to my boats were already down there geared up. Limited in about 45 minutes.
he would have limited a lot faster, but ya'll know me and my 4 lb line, so it took a bit to get them in, but hearing that drag screaming is what its all about!
---and then the end of the trip some guys came out in a row boat. "Redneck Style" shovels as paddels and a batterie or something as an ancor. of course they didnt know what they were doing, but they saw TarponFly out there in the water tearing the fish a new hole. so they decided to go get the boat and come back and try to sit in our hole.... even though the fish are freakin everywhere there. if you have the right gear and tackle, and know how and when to use it, you will catch the fish. we all in all, they launched near the fishing pier! well that caught the park rangers attention pretty quick! Josh said "Carey, the Game Warden is behind us" and i though he was jackin my chain.... then i heard the over egotistical ranger yelling at us to get out of the water and paddel across the river to the beach and meet the other ranger there. she said we are not allowed to launchnear the fishing pier, duh, i told her. she actually said, i have to park half way down the river and paddel up? i cant walk my boat under the tracks where other peeps walk....? WHAT????!!!! are they retarded? where is the sence in that? there are guys wading up to thier chest upstream from the tracks and i cand push a raft behind them, or carry my boats on land under the tracks like everyone else walks to to stay out of the water.....???? whatever, try giving me a ticket for a law that does not exist..... the guys got a 200 dollar ticket for stalking me (or not having life vests one or the other) so find your own!
