The days were flying by, and tend to run together in my mind, but I think it was the third afternoon when JC and I were back in camp early enough to head to the river and see what fish could be found. We recruited Gary as our guide, and I took my bow for carp, while JC rigged up a 3 weight flyrod.
I had only bowfished once before, and that was a long time ago, so this was pretty new stuff to me. The water was clear, and running fast, and I was having trouble figuring out how to hit the buggers. As those who have done it know, you have to hold low to hit what you're aiming at, and I soon found there is a learning curve involved. Wasn't long though and I found a carp tailing in some shallow water. With his back out of the water I didn't have to worry about a distorted image, and was soon hand lining a nice carp back to shore to the cheers of my gallery of two behind me.
JC limbered up the flyrod, and taught the bass a leason or two. I think his final tally was 12 bass that day, with the largest probably 2 1/2 lbs.
When we finished JC gave me a leason on carp skinning and making some fine leather for a project. He skinned the fish first, and then removed the scales one by one by hand rather than just scrapping them off. He explained that doing it that way leaves the color and pattern intact, and indead when he was finished we had two beautiful skins with a deep rich gold background and black markings. Those are going to make him a nice armgaurd! Unfortunately I was so engrossed in watching the process I never thought to get my camera and record the results.
Topic: Tales of TX Sweat 2007 - 1st Group (Read 22862 times)
