Henry Chappell

Concentration and anticipation. Cade ties on just the right popping bug.

Last week, my grandson Cade and I spent part of an afternoon and early evening trying out a 12-acre pond in Northeast Texas. This one is a winner. Cade fished from the float tube while I flogged away from the bank. He caught a dozen or so bass, several in the 2-3 pound range, and some nice bluegills. I found the bank fishing good too. Plenty of room for my back cast. Caught a couple decent bass and some huge bream. Plenty of cover, but open enough to fish streamers without too many hang ups. We'll be back.

As I mentioned a couple weeks back, we’re trying out some “bass bug” lines. After two outings, I have to say I’m impressed. I had no problem casting bulky number 4 deer hair bugs on a new 9' 6-wt Temple Fork rod.

Caught this pretty little bass just before sundown.

A two-fly evening. Little wooly bugger for bream; deer hair bug for bass.

Coming out tired and satisfied.

Northeast Texas bass water at sunset. We'll be back.

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Urban business interests and water developers want to condemn and drown some 16,000 acres of hardwood bottomland and farmland in northern Fannin County, Texas with a reservoir that will supply water to the thirsty and ever-growing Dallas-Fort Worth area. Here’s my take on the controversy in the latest issue of The Land Report. My thanks to editor Eric O’Keefe and his staff, and to Russell Graves for his fabulous photos. Much like the Marvin Nichols Reservoir controversy on the Sulphur River, the Bois d’Arc Creek fight pits rural Texans against urban interests. Given that Texas’s population is projected to double over the next forty years, the fighting will surely become more desperate.

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I should go ahead and buy an eight or nine-weight fly rod - a real bass rod so I can better cast big flies. But I'm cheap, so my grandson Cade and I have been flogging away with six-weight rods and deer hair bugs. Yeah, it tends to be windy on the North Texas prairie, but the fishing has been good on a couple of our favorite tanks (ponds). We've cheated a bit by moving up to seven-weight lines, but casting a number four bug or a weighted streamer often results in an embarrassing pileup, especially when the wind gusts. So I plan to cheat and skimp a little more this weekend by loading a couple reels with "bass bug" lines and heading to Lake Texoma. Supposedly, that extra forward weight will do a better job of turning over a bunch of hair and feathers. We'll see. I do wonder about the wisdom of paying nearly as much for a line as for the rod.

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Good lord, what a loss. No road trip is complete unless I hear this song at least a couple times:

My grandson Cade and I fished a pretty little pond in Wise County a few days back. He has become quite the fly fisherman. We caught lots of small bass and some huge bluegills.

These kids today. Cade plays and lands the fish while recording and narrating the action with his iPhone. If the event doesn't appear on social media it didn't happen, no matter how many first-hand witnesses.

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