A Site for Grandpappy Glasses

I'm starting to understand the need for good optics. This is crazy!

It was about 6:30 when I made it out to Big Lake a couple weeks ago to look for carp. I headed for the spot by the railroad tracks pictured here. There was something wrong. The distance between the weeds and the water had gotten wide.

This was a view from about 100 yards from the road looking north on that first picture linked in the article.

This is a picture of a small area where water was seeping in from the main body of Big Lake. I'm facing East.

The level of the water was way low. This made me excited, because it bode well for visibility. (I don't have my grandpappy glasses yet.) If I can see a tail fin, I can guess on where the head is.

Saw a lot of fins, but I was mistaken on  what they were, for the most part. A couple were golden beauties, but with globs of catfish fry near shore, other fins were other fish.

Alas, the carp didn't want to play that day, but the gar sure did!

Foul-hooked in the back. Woops!

Legitimately pursued and ate the fly. Because of the construction of its jaw, they are nearly impossible to hook. It came in because it didn't want to let go.

Last and largest of the day. Also not foul-hooked.

Not much to a gar as far as fight. Big and floppy like a pike, but not near as energetic. Hooked into a monster at one point, but they just feel like wavy logs moving through the water. The smaller ones like to run for a little bit. 

I took the girls to the companion pond there in Big Lake yesterday and they both caught fish! Eva's was about 3 inches long. It got off before I could snap a picture. Here's Ruth's:

Self-casted, self-reeled and self-held. Not self-removed yet, though.

The cool thing about yesterday's trip was that Ruth, unprovoked and with confidence, said, "I want to try and hold a fish today."

Not too many days hence, and this girl will be unhooking her own fish.

This morning I went out to the really low area and looked for more carp. Water was even lower. Didn't get to cast to carp fins until it was about time to leave. Had a large gar try to grab on to a bunny leach I had as a dropper. That was kind of scary, actually. They are very shark-like and it was near my legs.

I have some gear reviews to do still, but man I wish I could do a review on those grandpappy sunglasses. I am dying to be able to see what I'm casting to! The fins I cast to at the last were in such a position that, had I been able to see below the surface, maybe I could have gauged the length of the fish better. If I build it, they will come.

It was a huge fin. What a site for grandpappy sunglasses.