Warmwater Education and Shop News
There are some unbleeped words in this blog. Eyemuffs for the kids.
It’s a few days later and I am just now feeling recovered. I’m sitting at my favorite coffee shop that just so happens to be down the street from my new shop. In between is the guitar shop and that makes Friday afternoon walks so much better.
The drive was great. Driving east and seeing the landscape level-out was a strange experience. I’m used to going west and seeing the mountains grow in the distance. It makes you pay attention more to the change of scenery and grows the excitement for the adventure that’s ahead.
Driving with Dave is always a treat. He’s been on the go a lot and has a lot of great stories to share. His son Jack is something like 14 months old and is just about the cutest kid I’ve met that’s not one of mine. One thing I really enjoy is seeing Dave and his wife Jamie grow into being wonderful parents. I love hearing ‘Jamie and Jack’ stories on these drives. That’s one of the best parts of fishing.
When we arrive in Rocky Mount we drive straight to this amazing little sanctuary of tiny houses where we are staying for the night. Or it might be more of a commune. Whatever it is, it backs up to the Tar River and is adjacent to the Mill area where there’s enough beer, food, coffee, shopping and parking for everyone. It’s really cool and has a great feel to it and would make a great location for a future eastern warmwater paradise conclave when the shad fishing is on. Hmmm.
Right when we drop our stuff Will arrives like he’s been waiting round the corner for us. Will is a friend of Dave’s from a previous photo shoot and grew up in the area. He is a full time guide spending time in NC and Alaska and knows the area well. Dave’s description of Will ahead of time was "this dude is super nice and super fishy, and interesting … you’ll see."
The local water was a little too high to fish so we drove to another launch where Will knows we’ll be able to sight fish to some gar. Bald eagles, herons, egrets, little yellow birds of at least two different kinds and mama ospreys feeding their babies are everywhere. Fish were boiling every few seconds; it eventually made you a little numb to the sound except when I was throwing a bass popper and catching ‘fun size’ bass every few casts later in the evening.
We sight fished to and caught gar. We blind cast to anything that would bite including the following: largemouth bass, striped bass, crappie, bowfin, catfish, longnose gar. The flies we used were some of WIll’s modified masterpieces.
I didn’t end up using any of my rods so I could give some unfamiliar rods a decent try. I was glad I did. I used Will’s Orvis H3’s, Clearwater and Blackout rods and I was way more impressed than I thought I would be. They cast so well that it made me start to think about doing a little graphite sometime soon. They really were great tools for the job and good for me to experience.
It had been so long since I’d used 7-9wt rods that I forgot how to cast them. It was a great and humbling refresher! I was so out of practice that WIll had to teach me how to cast again, but once I got the feel for it I was pretty satisfied. The casting motion is so completely different from my Synthesis and especially Parabolic rods that I needed to retrain. That was a great exercise for me.
But by Wednesday afternoon I was so spent from the multi-hundred degree heatmidity that I forgot how to cast again and just enjoyed spotting fish while Dave put on a gar catching clinic and called all the bowfin that eluded us "chicken fuckers." His words, not mine.
One of my favorite parts was toward the beginning when I was on the bow of the boat casting to a fish when I got a good follow I started to fumble around with the line. Will was being gently encouraging at first. Then, when he saw that wasn't working, he dialed up the verbal abuse-ometer and yelled ‘l"get your shit together!" And "quit fucking around!" in quick succession.
Granted, I had line all over the place, was wearing Chaco’s which are great until you have fly line at your feet and are trying to sight fish to trash fish that are longer than Dave’s kid. Coincidentally, after that my casting, fishing and general attitude improved. I certainly appreciated using those rods and was genuinely impressed with how they fished and cast.
We caught fish. One gar in particular tried to bite Dave in the shorts when he was taking pictures of it. The look on his face is one that I’ll never forget. I laughed myself to sleep with those memories that night, with Will’s words of wisdom echoing in my mind.
Up at 4:40 the next morning and whack my head on the ceiling first thing. I was expecting that though so it was ok. WIll pulled up at 4:57 and we were off by 5. That’s clockwork-level efficiency right there. There was a beautiful deep sunrise on the way to the river and we caught enough stripers (they’re called rockfish locally) by 8 to make us happy enough to go on to try for more bowfin, bass and gar and whatever else we could find.
The backwaters warmed up quickly and at times it was that kind of hard-to-breathe humidity that makes you question recent life choices. We caught fish but still no bowfin. We got to see some that were feeding and moving and sunning and that was pretty awesome too. Their ribbon-like dorsal fin is startling to see at first. I’m honestly surprised that these fish don’t get more attention.
I enjoyed fishing here so much. It reminded me of fishing an oxbow lake in Mississippi when I was a kid. My mom, grandma, and uncles would tell me stories of community ‘gar rodeos’ they would have when they were kids. My grandma would always say "Chritopher (I don’t remember her ever saying the s in my name), watch out for those gar, they have teeth!" while making a chomping motion with her hand.
I didn’t get my panfish fix in but that was kind of on purpose. I’ll go back again to experience that another time. The shad fishing too. I also never asked why the town is called Rocky Mount when it seems to be neither rocky nor mountainous. Lots to do next time.
I almost forgot. We saw a bear swimming across a wide section of the river! It was amazing. Will spotted it first. I thought it was a beaver, and I think Dave thought it was a big otter. But when we got closer we could tell it was indeed a bear. When it got past the lily pads on the other side and could touch the bottom it sprinted off into the swamp without looking back. Thankfully Dave was there to get some good photos of it. This might be my favorite part of the whole trip. That and the huge old cypress trees. And the fishing.
That is a swimming bear.
A little bit of shop news … I just got in a bunch of my Synthesis blanks and will be listing these for pre-order on my website soon. I have cut and ferruled all of them and they are now ready to build starting this coming week. How that works: put down a deposit ($amount) to secure a build spot, pay the balance upon completion. With this round of blanks, I won’t be offering them for sale for the blank only. I’ll start adding them to the store this weekend. I still plan to sell blanks but I can’t justify it right now. And speaking of shops, a few of you have asked me about my new workshop space. I’ll see if I can give a virtual tour at some point soon. It’s getting a bit summery in there.
See y’all later and good fishing!
Cb
P.S: Mom, sorry for the adult words in this one.
P.P.S. Here’s where you can find more info about the tiny house commune: River and Twine
P.P.P.S. Here’s where you can contact Will to book a trip, and maybe also get some encouraging verbal abuse: Captain Will Paul at Tar River Co., Rocky Mount, NC