8-21-11...My day with Drew Price

What a day to say the least. I met up with fellow warm water enthusiast and guide Drew Price yesterday for an angling adventure. If you haven't checked out Drew and his special form of fly angling you are missing out on some great stuff. Drew is on leading edge of warm water fly angling to say the least. We had bad weather coming but decided to make a go for it anyway. The goal of the day was to target two species that I have never targeted before...Long Nose Gar and Bowfin. The techniques are quite different from anything I have done before. The info online is minimal at best. Drew specializes in sight fishing for these magnificent fish. Off to the lake we go..

The day started off with a bit of sun...We were on the water for an hour or two, spotty sunshine at best. Over the mountains the distant roar of thunder and dark clouds loomed. We pushed on trying to find basking Gar. The lack of sunlight made spotting these fish near impossible. The thunder got louder, the clouds got darker...then bammmm...the lightning began...out of nowhere...it crept up like a weather ninja...We were a fair distance away from safety at this point...So down went the rods and up came the paddles...The lightning at this point was close enough to light a fire under both of our butts...We paddled...paddled hard....then the clouds let loose and the down pour begin...Instead of paddling around the bay we decided the safest course was through the swamp to the other side for cover...

We jumped ship and carried the canoe through thigh deep slop mud for 50 yards...This is not small stream trout angling..This is combat hardcore fishing...

After fleeing through the swamp and landing on the other side..we scurried to the car, waited out the lightning and loaded up planning on calling it a day of no fish...Drew wanted to check the radar one more time...His dedication to a successful outing came through at this point. He said lets wait it out a bit and give this another try,. The weather cleared up and we hit the water again. Sight fishing for bowfin began at this pint...These fish are intense. When you come up on one they sit in the water and stare you down...All you see is beady little black eyes and a grimmace of go ahead...make my day....They eat a fly with a vengeance...and explode once hooked....We found plenty of fish, but due to poor weather overall, we had a hard time getting many to play. We chased bowfin for a while then gave the Gar another chance...

We hit the other bay at this point...We were on the water for maybe 35 minutes when the clouds started to roll in again...It looked as though the storm was traveling away from us, but instead it came straight in....Lightning began again...We paddling like madmen once again to get to safety...This time not through the swamp..We ended up having to ditch the boat on the bank and run to the safety of the car to wait out the lightning storm. This time we called it a day...Safety before fish...

It was an awesome day...no Gar caught, but I hooked up a couple of Bowfin and can't wait to do it all again...If you are looking for an awesome adventure...something different...a different species...leave your dry fly box and 4 weight at home...no waders necessary....dig in and get down and dirty..learn a thing or two about a different species and some new angling techniques give Drew a shout...The man is doing stuff you didn't even think was possible...all on the fly...he's a great dude, friendly, knowledgeable, catch and release, has the gear you need and will put in the time and effort to get you the fish you want...Master Class Angling...

http://www.drewpriceonthefly.com/
http://wn.com/DrewPriceOnTheFly
http://dponthefly.blogspot.com/