brian dunigan
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Why stir the pot, Brian?
C’mon, don’t take things the wrong way. I was just ribbing you a little bit. Obviously you have to enjoy a project like that or you wouldn’t do it.
Now, I’m the opposite – I have neither the appetite nor the aptitude for doing projects like that one. You know all too well that we don’t get much time away from the office in our business. Like you, when I have a day off, I want to spend it doing what I want to do, because that off time is so rare that it’s worth a premium. For me, that’s being on the water, playing music, or some other leisure activity. Building a boat wouldn’t do much for me.
Stability is relative. Zach and I have discussed this before – he has a 14′ Old Town Guide and loves it; I had the same canoe for a long time and always thought it was squirrely.
If you don’t have to portage and you’re not fishing fast water where you need to be agile and maneuverable, I tend to think the best choice is the biggest, widest aluminum canoe you can get your hands on. You lose a little bit in paddling speed from the weight, but there is a tradeoff advantage because the wind won’t push you around nearly as much on breezy days.
My main canoe now is a 17 foot Alumacraft that is like a tank – but it’s as stable as a jon boat and a heck of lot easier, in my opinion, to fish out of than the Old Town Guide.
I wouldn’t recommend a big Alumacraft like that if you’re going to have to carry it far, or if you’re going down Class 3 water, but for fishing lakes and slow rivers, it’s the best paddling option I’ve found.
Edit:
I got a trolling motor with the boat but it’s a manual job. I have never been a huge fan since watching a couple buddies chew their lines up in trolling motors, but I will definitely play around with it.
Trolling motors indeed can eat a flyline if you aren’t careful.
As I recall he cut 1.5″ PVC, then heated it in the oven at 350 degrees for about five minutes, then he used a set of clamps to straighten one of the edges out while it cooled.
You seem to be enjoying the DYI thing, but if you decide to make this step easier, the folks at Custom Gheenoe (http://www.customgheenoe.com) sell the push pole brackets at a very reasonable price.
My Gheenoe is a Classic and is a little wider inside, but one thing I like is that the gas tank is mounted forward in the center box.
Do you take requests, Zach?
I’ve always wanted to do a knot strength test on the weaver’s bend knot, aka the “castwell knot” linked here:
http://flyanglersonline.com/begin/knots/castwell.php
It’s about the simplest line to leader connection conceivable and seems to have pretty good strength.
By the way, a lot of the little touristy places around Cancun will offer “deep sea fishing” charters.
It has been many, many years since I’ve been to Cancun, but on the two trips I’ve taken there, we had pretty good fishing. You just have to connect with the right guide and have the right expectations.
We chased baby tarpon and snook in the mangroves and then hit the reefs for yellowtail and other various random fish. I had a really good time. One night we went out after dark into the mangroves – that was bait fishing with live fish, but we caught fish until we were tired.
Like I said, have the right expectations though. There was a lot of talk down there about fishing for permit and bonefish, but I didn’t see much sign of either one. If I had my heart set on those fish, it would have been a long, disappointing trip. And the baby tarpon were very small, so if you went looking for a big tarpon like you see on t.v., it would be disappointing. But the little ones were fun on light tackle, and it was fast action. The snook, on the other hand, were almost TOO big – we’d catch baby tarpon for a while, and then a big snook would hit out of nowhere like a freight train and charge for the mangroves. More often that not, the combination of surprise, light tackle, and big snook would result in a quick broken line, but we got a handful in.
Even though the fish were small, I liked the inshore fishing much better than the couple days of deep sea fishing we did. We caught some big barracuda and a couple bonito, but I’m just not a big fan of trolling – if the fishing is slow, it becomes just a long, expensive boat ride.
A couple other thoughts:
1. Bring insect repellent, especially if you fish at night like we did. The no-see-ums in the mangroves were the worst I’ve ever seen anywhere on the planet.
2. Bring your own gear. Even the good guides down there seem to have ancient stuff in rough condition.
3. Set your heart for numbers of small fish instead of a big tarpon or permit, and be flexible enough to go after whatever is biting. On the day the flats were slow, we went off to the reef and chased the yellowtails and saved the day.
bd
Brian that fin is exactly why i think it may have been stocked somewhere at some point.
Great minds think alike.
Definitely not a “stocker,” (i.e., freshly stocked) but maybe a holdover. Once they’ve been in the water for a year, it’s awfully hard to tell the stocked fish from the hatchery-bred ones, unless there are lingering after-effects from fin damage still present. Sometimes if a hatchery fish’s fins wear down to the nubs from the hatchery raceways, the fins will grow back with a bit of a crinkle or curl instead of being perfectly straight.
In the fish in the photo, the pectoral fin facing the camera might have a bit of a kink in it, but it’s awfully hard to tell.
Beautiful fish regardless of where it was born.
bd
Local flies are no more complex than any tailwater patterns anywhere.
Oh, I was asking about flies for the creek, which is up by Ellijay.
Thanks a ton, Zach. I have been desperately hoping you might have some helpful input for this thread.
Now I just need to learn more about Mountaintown Creek for the rest of the days when I’m not quail hunting.
Any particular flies I ought to be tying right now? I’m assuming it’s going to be all midges and small pheasant tails, but if there are any particular local favorites I ought to be carrying in my box, let me know.
Edit – by the way, what caused the fish kill?
bd
I got the impression from the guide that the Toccoa was stocked water – he said something on the phone about them putting brood fish in the river in the winter. So I’m thinking it’s stocked trout versus stocked quail, more or less.
The gist of my question boils down to how the Toccoa fishes in late December, really. Some tailwaters suck that time of year unless there’s a shad kill or something going on. I don’t know if the Toccoa is in that category or not.
I like to fish more than I like to hunt, but I get more opportunities to fish, too. If the Toccoa is likely to be fishing pretty well, then I’ll probably do that. If I’m likely to go all day for a handful of dinks, then I’d probably prefer to shoot some quail that day for something different to do, and spend the rest of my week chasing the dinks in the mountain creeks closer to the cabin we’ll be staying in.
bd
