A few of my favorite things and “the best money I ever spent”

By Jill Toler

Hello my Wavewalk friends! It’s been way too long since I posted a story about my most awesome W700 and how happy it makes me.

So, last October I traveled a little ways to a town called Vandemere, here in North Carolina. It’s actually not too far from me as the crow flies but, the crow didn’t build the roads. The town just prettied up the boat ramp and surrounding land to make a very nice area for the public’s pleasure. I really wanted to try a new technique and fly combination that my good friend, Capt. Gary Dubiel invented, to catch some fish. It’s called the Pop-n-Fly and although I didn’t catch anything on this particular day, I caught a bunch the day after Christmas fishing with Capt. Gary. The area was just beautiful and I really enjoyed fishing and paddling. What I didn’t enjoy was the skunk. I don’t care for getting skunked so, I had to come up with Plan B.

Plan B was to slide in at Lee Landing to fish the Upper Broad for redemption. Plan B was executed and yielded a great catch of sunnies. Sitting in my kayak tossing little poppers and catching sunnies is just about as close to perfect as you can get, as far as I’m concerned. My “happiness” meter pegs out every time.

On June 3rd of this year; yes, it was a looooooong time between kayak trips, I thought to myself: “Self, you should give Northwest Creek another try”. I have not had the most success in Northwest Creek; except for that awesome day after Christmas fishing with Capt. Gary, with catching much of anything. Fish are hard to come by in that area for some reason. Anyway, loaded up the kayak the evening before so that I could be on the water early and execute what I thought would be an outstanding time of fish catching. Yeah; not so much! I’m pretty sure I will NOT return to Northwest Creek until at least November or December.

Knowing how I feel about getting skunked, I bet you can guess what I did that afternoon? Yep. Lee landing and Upper Broad Creek kayak fishing time! After some lunch and a nap, I took the W700 back to it’s roots and commenced to redeem myself and the day in a fantastic manner. So much so, that my smartypants phone became overheated from taking pictures and being out in the sun that it refused to take the picture of that 3 pound bass that I caught. My thought of course was, “Seriously!” My words were more like “son of a biscuit eater!” Here I have been fishing with one little popper and catching a bunch of fish, when this big bass sucks that popper down like a grape slurpee and runs around that kayak like a dirt track racer and my smartypants phone suddenly becomes sensitive to Eastern North Carolina weather! It even displayed a bright red thermometer in case I didn’t quite understand the displayed message of, “phone must cool down before use”. Well, I considered dunking it in the relatively cool water to help with the hot flash but, my inner adult thought better and just politely tucked it inside of my new favorite bag that I found at Academy Sports.

The bag is actually a kayak fish keeping bag that I discovered held ALL of my stuff and sits just beautifully on the saddle in front of me. I do secure it with some cords that have a ball on one end and a securable hook on the other so if I flip the yak it will still be attached. I slide the ball up under the teeth of the saddle and it stays in there nice and tight.

Back to the epic afternoon of fish catching… I managed to catch a whole bunch of sunnies and some bass in a relatively short period of time. The time of day was just right and the barometric pressure was falling, putting those little fish tummies on chow down time. My adventure evidently caught the attention of some folks that live on the creek as well as a couple of fellas that were trying to duplicate my success. After explaining fly fishing everybody wanted to know about my ‘boat” so, I showed it off and answered all of their questions.

This past Saturday, the 10th, I slid out to Upper Broad Creek very early and paddled way up the creek to an area that I had not fished. The morning was just so beautiful and peaceful. At least until the Saturday bass fishing tournament guys came screaming up the creek. The fish were very picky that day and although the numbers of fish I caught were low, the size was impressive.

I still regard my Wavewalk kayak as “the best money I ever spent” and I am looking very forward to paddling and fishing this year. Y’all take care and keep the stories coming as I love to read all about your adventures.

More fly fishing and rigging with Jill »