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| Alex holding a nice Green Sunfish |
While thumbing through an issue
of Southwest Fly Fishing, I saw an article about a small creek east of Houston
called Village Creek. At the office, the following day, I gave the article to
my friend Alex, who read it eagerly. We both decided that this little creek, in
the eastern Pineywoods of Texas, absolutely needed its local fish population
terrorized by two guys and a dog. Alex and I loaded up the inflatable Flycraft
drift boat Friday morning and before the sun had risen over I-10, we headed east.
We put into the water around
7:00AM where RT 327 runs over the creek. Our take-out was approximately 2.5
miles downstream to a small boat ramp called Baby Galvez Landing. Even in the
waking light of the early morning the air was muggy, and it was evident that it
would be a hot day. The dog, Minnow, ran frantically around the boat ramp in
excited anticipation.
I took the oars first and Alex sat
at the bow of the boat ready to cast his fly line. It didn’t take long before Alex
spotted a gar rising to the surface of the water. He threw a quick roll cast to
the gar and began stripping his tandem woolly buggers. Suddenly, Alex’s line
went taught and he felt a hard tug. He quickly set the hook and a split second
later we were both laughing with excitement as the lean body of a gar came
rocketing out of the water. The prehistoric-looking fish splashed frantically
on the surface of the water and jumped several times before submitting to the
pull of the rod. So with that, our day started with a gar in the boat before we
even had floated out of sight of the boat ramp. It was going to be a good day.
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| I was able to quickly put gloves on and hold Alex's gar while he snapped a quick photo. |
The creek was pretty slow-moving
for the majority of the float, but the banks were high and there weren’t many
trees overhanging the water. There was plenty of room for a nice back cast. Evidence of the fairly recent flooding events were all around us as we floated.
Huge oak trees that had toppled from the banks into the water were protruding
from the depths. Their gnarled limbs jutted from the surface of the calm waters
as if they were attempting to grab the high banks and roust their woody frames
from the sandy creek bottom. Our inflatable drift boat floated lazily over top
of the submerged trees as we attempted to cast our lines among the skeletal
forms of the submerged limbs.
Most meanders in the creek offered gorgeous sandy point bars. On numerous
occasions throughout our float, we pulled the boat up to these beautiful white
sandbars to take a break and let the dog run off some pent-up energy. Once the
boat pulled up to the sand bar and Alex and I got out, Minnow, would
leap out of the boat with fervor and start racing around the white sandbar in
circles. She sent sand flying into the air with every bounding leap she took.
After a couple laps around the point bar, she would generally wade into the
shallows of the water and lay down. When she was cooled sufficiently, she would
then prowl the shallows for a nice stick protruding out of the sand. She would
tug on the stick furiously until it was removed from its partial burial. With
that she would trot proudly over to a damp patch of sand and begin gnawing
happily.
The water itself had a very tannic tint to it. But even with the rusty
brown color, there was more visibility than I would have thought. With that
being said, sight fishing was out of the question, but it was possible to see
into the water about 8 to 10 inches.
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| A quick picture of a beautiful Longear Sunfish |
In hindsight, it seems like a
5-weight is plenty strong for this creek. Alex and I both brought 7-weight rods
and that seemed like too much backbone. We each hooked into species of fish
that neither of us had caught before. We hooked into plenty of Longear Sunfish and
I caught my first Spotted Bass. It may have just been coincidence, but it
seemed like most of the Longear Sunfish were along the banks where there didn’t
appear to be much cover. The two bass, one of which was a Largemouth, were
found around submerged trees. By far, the Longears were the most fun to catch.
They would hit white streamers and dry flies readily, despite their tiny size.
The Longears’ coloration was fantastic. Their reddish bellies contrasted with
the aqua-blue coloring down the length of their sides.
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| Alex with his first Longear of the day. |
Overall this creek was a great
float. The day was very hot and humid, but the good fishing took our minds off
of the hundred-degree temperatures. Good
fishing, a friend, and a dog made it well worth the 2-hour drive.
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