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02/23/10

fly fishing hawaii:

the crew’s double slam.

 

went up to the lake on saturday with surfa boy craig of the nwff crew.  i had just watched my friend john sherman on the recently released dvd “bass the movie”.  this dvd takes a look at the obsession with bass in america (focussing on california) and incorporates some hard core bass fly anglers.  this is a cool dvd definitely worth checking out.

 

anyway the video got me stoked to go do some bass fly fishing “hawaii style”.  craig had the day off so away we went.  when we got to the lake there was no one there, that’s never a good sign especially for a weekend.  we thought that the bite must be off, but no matter.  in true nwff crew style, we charged.

 

the water level was really low as the "powers that be" have been keeping it lately.  the winds were light and variable.  we scouted around a bit but there were no signs of peacocks busting so we hunkered down and began pounding stretches of shoreline.

 

in true bass master fashion, i brought several rods.  a sage smallmouth bass rod rigged with a small banger style popper, a 7wt. sage z-axis with a fast sinking shooting head, and a g loomis glx 5wt. with an intermediate line.  craig brought a five weight with a sinking shooting line, a sage smallmouth rod, and a spinning rod.  together we were prepared for anything and the lady of the lake did not disappoint.

 

i fished a popper for most of the day and although probably not as effective as fishing subsurface…  the topwater cracks and boils from aggressive peacocks are hard to beat.  i did fish the other rods because, as i always say, everything must get bit.  by the late afternoon both craig and i had caught numerous peacocks on every rod we brought.  i also caught a largemouth on a streamer fished deep and craig caught a red devil.

 

as the day was winding down so i told craig i was going to get a red devil to complete my lake grand slam (we call the lake grand slam a red devil, a peacock bass, and a largemouth bass).  we saw a lot of devils as we were fishing, but didn’t really go for them because the peacock bass bite was pretty consistent the whole day.  i began scanning the shoreline.  i cast at a few but they had already gone into the late evening scared devil shutdown mode.  i was almost going to give up when out of nowhere that familiar orange orb appeared out of the deep.  this one looked like it was "an eater".  i kept my fly in front of the fish and with one deft gill flare the fight was on.  it turned out to be a pound and a quarter, probably the biggest devil that i ever pulled from the lake.  slam complete.

 

we fished a little more but it was getting cold and the bite had all but shut down.  i told craig we’d make one more pass along the area we were fishing.  craig picked up his sage bass rod with a popper.  he made a good cast into a pile of wood and bam something engulfed his popper.  he brought it up… a largemouth bass.  in typical surfa boy style, craig pulled out a slam of his own in the critical moments of the game.  a double slam for the crew… sometimes like that.

 

peacocks on poppers.

 

this guy ate a streamer.

 

craig shows that they love the grand slam fly.

 

a little fat chunky dude.

 

peacock with a prototype fly i call the rolled minnow.

 

i never thought they got over a pound until this thick fatty.

 

craig completes the slam (and the day) when this dude swallowed his popper.  good times.

 

clay. 


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