Texas Turkey Recap

Got back home last night after a quick and futile trip to Texas in search of some spring Gobblers. Had a great time, enjoyed some warm (hot) weather, saw some turkeys, caught some Bass, ate some crawdads, and made it through some pretty nasty weather too.

The turkeys were roosting in some trees in the middle of a small lake, they would gobble back at us while in the roost but just disappear once they hit the hit the ground, not to be heard from until the next morning. We did get their pattern sorted out and positioned ourselves where we needed to be on the last morning, but only hens were around that morning.

An incredible wind/rain storm came through that night and caused lots of damage throughout that region of Texas. It ripped a part of the tin roof off the house we were staying in. So, right in the middle of this storm we were staring up at the ceiling watching water come pouring out of light sockets. We turned the lights off, put some towels down and went back to sleep. The amount of damage that storm did was pretty amazing but we didn't realize it until the next morning.

Bass fishing was fun though. We fished a couple of small pieces of water one of which would be called a large stock pond and the other a small lake. Unfortunately the wind was terrible so we had a tougher time fishing the larger pond. This one is classic bass fishing with large submerged trees, lots of vegetation, deep channels...just lots of structure. We put an old school bass buster in the water with a trolling motor but just pretty much got blown around. I ended up fishing a baitcaster outfit and getting them pretty good on stickbaits and spinnerbaits. It amazes me that fish will eat that junk!

So we concentrated our efforts on the smaller pond which was more protected and ended up fishing really well. I mostly tried to take some photos as my buddy fly fished -(he would've used the baitcaster if he could've figure out how to do it without getting a backlash every other cast). But, the 8 wt Helios provided enough power to push those big hair flies through the wind and he ended up doing really well too. Swimming frog patterns and clouser minnows ended up being all we needed.

Anyway, back in MT. Supposed to do a couple trips later this week so we'll see how the weather holds. The lower madison is junkified pretty bad right now and the boat ramp at Ennis and VG are probably still inaccessible, so boat fishing will probably be on the stone provided the winds stay down.

I have to be honest and say that I kind of like going back to Texas and spending time in the Hill Country, but there is no place like Montana...happy to be home for a week. Off to Casper next week for the Orvis Guide Rendezvous and then Christine and I got to Belize a week from this coming Saturday.