The Elkhorn Creek Fishing series hit the creek July 13th for the third tournament in the series. A rainy summer has continued and the creek was up and moving. Even with the high water the fish were hungry and a great time was had by all. Registration began at 5:00am and I was able to hit the water by 6:30. Taylor took another tournament off to go see her new baby cousin and that was probably a good call with the high swift moving water.. more on that later.
Participation was a little down with the higher water but although the creek was high and swift it was pretty clear - slightly stained but definitely not chocolate milk. I was able to catch fish on a stick bait and a tube with my best three fish coming on the tube. My best 3 fish were 36.5" which was good enough for 7th place. My biggest on the day was a 13.25" smallmouth. Top three in the standings were first place - Matt Schaefer, second place - T.J. Strong, and 3rd place - Allen Bullman.
So the more on that later part.... found out today you can actually flip a NuCanoe Frontier although it was totally user error. About 3/4 way through the float is a riffle called the claw which is a little tough but usually easily manageable. I was going through it just fine, but I have an orange strap loop on the front of the boat I use to drag or attach when I get out to wade which had flipped out and was hanging out the front of the kayak. Well as I was passing the really swift part with an under cut bank the strap got caught on a root under the water while I was leaning over to get under a branch. The caught strap instantly stopped the Frontier and spun it slamming it into the bank while I was leaning the other direction - boat flipped and I was in the drink. The good news - the Frontier was easy to flip back over and in a matter of seconds I was back on the Frontier accessing my situation. Most of my gear was floating quickly down stream but I gathered what I could. There was another member right behind me who also flipped his Coosa. We broke down his paddle and each used half a paddle as we continued down stream hoping to find my paddle, crate and other items. We continued down stream and another kayaker had retrieved my paddle and empty crate and also a few of my plano boxes. I did end up losing quite a bit of tackle my crate was un strapped earlier and I had forgot to strap it back up. Remarkably I only lost one rod - and it was the one that was strapped in go figure! The three rods that were laying on the floor with only the butt ends under the seat base remained right in the kayak so I guess it could have been much worse! At the end of the float it was nice to see that the Frontier after the flip had very little water in it do to the water tight design of the hatch.... the Coosa on the other hand was at least 3/4 full of water on the inside
Despite the flip, lost rod, and lost tackle I had a great time on the creek and learned a few things about keeping my gear secure. Even with the higher water there were a lot of fish caught and I am looking forward to rest of the series and chasing those bronze backs the rest of the summer!
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