Artificials or live baits: Which catches the biggest or the most redfish and speckled trout? The answer may surprise you.
One of my best trips of last season was prophesized by the Bible.
I’d been reading this book, “Cracking the Bible Code” by Jeffrey Satinover. It deals with scanning of Hebrew books of the Bible using computers and finding sequences of letters in close proximity that spell out historic events, and possibly future ones as well.For example, researchers found matrix pairings such as “Bill Clinton” in a horizontal scan, next to “President” in a vertical scan. Other pairings include one with “Hitler,” “Nazi” and “World Domination,” and another with “Kennedy,” “Dallas” and “Leader Killed.”
This all seemed like a crock to me at first. I mean, how can you trust anything written about the Bible by someone whose last name is pronounced “Satan-over?”
But shortly afterwards, I read about some new word pairings they’d discovered, which convinced me without doubt this was real. The pairings included “Coke beats Pepsi” and “flies outfish bait.”
The most startling was an analysis of the Book of Revelation. In the third verse, they found the coded words “Millers Lake” next to “Catch” and “Gobbules.” Since I hadn’t been to Millers Lake in a decade, I knew this had to be prophecy.
So I loaded up the boat, and headed to Ville Platte to fish a lake my dad and I had frequented many times in my youth.
Back then, no trip to Millers or nearby Chicot was complete without a stop at Cary’s Sporting Goods to pick up a few “Ville Platte Specials.” These were the 1/32- and 1/64-ounce beetles that come either with or without a spinner. Our favorite color for Millers was black/yellow.
Mark Cary says most of his customers use crickets for Millers. I suspect they haven’t been informed of the most recent discovery of Biblical code. In it, the phrase “clear water favors” are on the same page as “fly rodders.” For some of us, this isn’t revelation. It’s long been Cormier’s 2nd Commandment — uh, Law — that clear water gives flies the advantage.
Millers Lake is a mostly open, very shallow reservoir with drainage from the edge of the sandy Kisatchie Hills. Without heavy sediment runoff, or much shade, a wide variety of aquatic vegetation flourishes in the lake, further filtering out organics. It’s not uncommon to spot fish swimming underneath your boat in 2 to 3 feet of water.
Cary says for this reason, the best fishing is usually the first and last parts of the day.
On this particular day, fog had engulfed the lake. In low-light conditions, I always like popping bugs. Sure enough, on several occasions good-sized bluegill would come up and smack an Accardo’s Miss Prissy size 10, putting a U-shaped bend into my 3-weight rod.
Around 9:30 a.m., the sun burst free of the clouds, and within an hour, there was nothing but blue sky all around me. The poppers only worked for a short time after. It was at this point I tied on my new secret weapon.
In my early fly-tying days, I attempted to create a fly version of the Ville Platte Special. My VPS was tied using a buggy SLF chenille. SLF stands for “synthetic living fiber,” a translucent material that shimmered in light. It certainly attracted fish, but like rock bands from the ’80s, it was a one-hit wonder. If Mr. Bream didn’t swallow the hook, he was a gone pecan.
The Jitterbee certainly outperformed the VPS in that regard. It’s a killer because bream just keep biting it.
Bob Boese of Lafayette has been studying the eating habits of bream for a long time, and he observes that most often the first hit is one that’s intended to cripple the food organism. That explains why they’ll peck and peck — even when the fish are of “wristband” proportions.
I figured it was maybe the soft chenille of which the Jitterbee is constructed that made the difference. So in reinventing the VPS, I went with plastic-like strands called larva lace, or otherwise know as V-rib. Thanks to a technique shown to me by my friend Dirk Burton, where the strands are woven upon the hook, I was able to give the VPS a very insect-like appearance.
Now in most cases, fishing a submergent fly under a mini-cork for bream will allow detection of the pecks. But in clear water, corks just don’t work, so the fly must be stripped instead.
There’s nothing like catching a fish on a fly you tied, or better yet, you created. The adrenaline was rushing through as chunky bream kept falling to the new improved VPS. About 30 yards away were a pair of anglers fishing crickets, and I’m proud to say the VPS beat the crickets 2-to-1.
After putting about 30 into the box, it was catch-and-release until the ol’ stomach said it needed nourishment. No trip to Ville Platte is without a stop at one of the local favorites, The Pig Stand, for some of their mouth-watering shrimp etouffee.
A great trip topped by a great meal. You don’t need secret codes to determine this is fly fishing for bream as God intended it.
