Memorial Day Bassin'

Got the call from my good friend Luc asking whether I wanted to fish his private oasis on Memorial Day.  Naturally I accepted.  I had borrowed his Sage Bluegill rod for suzuki fishing and I needed to return it along with a few items I purchased for him while in the far east. 

Knowing that I had to be at Luc's place at 5am I went to bed early around 9:30pm only to be awoken around 11pm.  Now awake I couldn't get back to sleep so at around 3:30am I got out of bed and started preparing to head out.  I arrived early at Canyon Lake so I topped the SUV with gas and made for the drive-thru at a crappy fast food joint for breakfast before heading to the front gate of the community.

Before the Asia tour I bought a SA Big Fly 8 weight line for suzuki fishing but I never put the line on before the trip and just cleaned and lubed the old Rio Clouser line and took that with me.  When I came home I exchanged the lines and while casting it in the pool I noticed it seemed way too heavy for my Sage XP 8 weight.  So I put it on my Sage RPLXi 9 weight and it seemed to handle the line nicely.  It was this set up I used for this day.  I first rigged up with a foam frog pattern I hoped to catch snakehead in Taiwan with but never ended up fishing the fly.  It proved too heavy and wind resistant for this set up so I switched to an experimental fly I created last bass season.  I fished it once and that day was lousy and I only had one strike all day (with this fly no less), so it was still untested.  Within a matter of moments I was on.  A small bass but a bass no less on the new fly.  Later I'd get another one much larger in the 2.5-3 pound range.  I'd switch flies to the flypala (another experimental fly) and manged a dink.  That would be it for me despite switching multiple times thereafter.  Luc managed 3 or four but probably had twice as many blowups.  Nice to be back in America at one of my favorite bass lakes.  Always a pleasure sending time with Luc on his boat and private water.  Water is low this year and this summer may get rough.  We were done by 9am and I headed back to get ready for some Memorial Day festivities at a buddy's house.