May 15, 2008 - Bruce Wilks

BEGIN AND END TIMES: 11:00am to 7:00pm

AIR TEMPERATURE 84 deg F, WEATHER CONDITIONS: Wind 4 mph to 12 mph, Overcast 4.5 hours with sunny to partly cloudy 2.5 hours…

WATER TEMPERATURE 75deg, WATER CONDITION: Some clear water 10” to 1.5 feet deep some murky water 8” to 1.5 feet deep…

FLIES THAT WORKED (size, color, pattern): # 4 and #2 gold or copper East Cut spoon flys and Tom Horbee spoons in Gold/Red… Also some of Brook’s tied flies that I think were shrimp and baitfish imitations…

DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTING: Bruce Wilks & Brooks Bouldin fishing off Lake Charles, LA, at Grosse Savanne in the private marsh with their fly fishing guide Capt Devin Palomino. http://www.grossesavanne.com/staff.asp He was an excellent guide and put us on at least 25 fish that we could site cast to the visible fish or its wake, but I only hooked 6 of those and landed 4 Reds 19” to 26” Reds, It snapped half way up my 18” 15lb tippet, so it was not my knot… I had another big shouldered Red on, but after after a 20 sec fight the fly pulled out due to I think I put way too much pressure on it. I lost another one due to a poor hook set on my part and letting the fish have slack line. We saw some that were tailing but the distance was too far and by the time he poled us in there they were gone. Many of the ones we cast to and caught were moving in groups of 1 to 3 fish. In the morning I cast to at least 10 fish that I either spooked by my very excited poor casting behind them, or on their backs. In the afternoon I cast to more fish at their wakes or spotted them moving, 7 of which I cast just behind them due to they were moving fast and I did not lead them enough by the time my fly landed on the water behind them, then I hooked the other 6... Brooks my fishing partner hooked 8 and landed 5 nice Reds, with his last one being the big Red of the day at 28”…! Brooks is an excellent caster, but he also missed hookup on some nice fish. One really nice Red broke Books tippet due to shock of the red running away from him and setting the hook at the same time, from his perch on the polling platform, Devin got a good look at this fish and he said it was a big fish! Many of them were very spooky fish, so if you had one cast and missed the sweet spot, they were gone… I can’t even count how many other fish spooked either before we spotted them or before we could get a cast off… Many mud slicks left from fish that spooked from the boat noise…

It was Really Big fun in the last hour from 6:00 to 7:00 pm, we doubled up twice under some birds feeding on top the water on popping shrimp being herded by a pod of big reds and landed all four fish… Great fun… All the ones we caught were above 20” except the one 19” I caught… It was a great 7.0 hours of fishing…

DESCRIPTION OF THE FISHING SPOT: Grosse Savanne Lodge