Willow slurpers

I fished with Darren McDonald last Wednesday and we had another interesting day on the flats. The Hex hatch was beginning to wind down but a few adults were clinging to willows around the edge of the lake. Bass were still up shallow but moving around with much more urgency than before - as if they knew the easy food was thinning out and they wanted to make as much of the remaining calories as possible.

Darren was treated to another day of glaring sun (at the beginning) and wind that made spotting and casting conditions rough. As the wind finally let up after noon, the atmosphere "popped" and storms bubbled up from the broth of heat and humidity. You can see the storms percolating in the background of the photo. The one big storm in the area sat right on top of us as we left and pounded the area with rain and wind.

Interesting side note . . . the willow trees have "seeded" and the carp were up sipping the fluffy seeds. They look much like Cottonwood seeds and form floating masses of fluff in back eddies and coves. At one point we could hear a large carp slurping the seeds off the surface; it sounded like someone dropping pebbles in a fountain. We looked around and saw a huge pair of orange lips working on a "seedline". Darren did his best Blue Heron impersonation and after an agonizing several minutes (the carp kept moving every 5-10 seconds), put the fly right in the fish's mouth. After a good fight, the carp pictured above was brought to hand.

(BTW - notice the Hex adult on Darren's elbow!)