Saturday, August 31, 2013

Sittin' on the dock of the bay......

It's been an awesome summer. Haven't had time to post much. Been to busy enjoying the kids and the weather. We're ending the summer with an extended weekend at the beach. I hope your summer was as fun as mine. It won't be long before I'm shoveling snow and refilling the nearly empty fly boxes.

If you need me, I'll be chasing blues in the back bay on the 4 weight. Happy Labor Day.




Saturday, August 3, 2013

Back in the saddle

My wife said something very rare to me last night when I got home from work.

"I have some stuff to do Sunday, but if you wanna spend the morning fishing on Saturday, go for it."

"Seriously? No catch?"

"it's fine."

I haven't caught a trout or even went trout fishing in the past 2-3 months so I figured this was a golden opportunity. I got up at 7am, spent a little time with the kids, and turned the 45 minute trip to the stream into a 25 minute  NASCAR race, narrowly dodging cop cars.

Honestly, it took me a  little to get back into the groove. Throwing size 26 flies on 8x tippet is much different than the monster hoppers I've been splashing down on 3x for bass and panfish.

I hooked into and lost a big palomino that I've caught twice before two separate times before he gave up rising. I then started seeing some more looking up and then I saw him.....

A little guy, no more than 12 was in the middle of the stream about 50 yards down and started making his way upstream, splashing around and banging his size 8 nymph on the head of everything he saw rising. The fish were gone.

His dad was with him, but was obviously not a fly fisherman. I pointed out that he was spooking the fish and spent some time to explain to him how the trico spinner fall worked, and how these fish were wild, therefore sloshing around in the middle of the stream won't help much. I offered to help them out since I wanted the kid to get on some fish, and to get the hell out of the run I was working. I walked them a little upstream, and put them on some fish that were probably more willing to take a big nymph.

By the time I walked back down to the run I wanted to fish, it was pouring and the rises were pretty much turned off. I hooked into a few monsters that broke off the 8x, and landed a few average fish after a lot of work. All in all, not too bad of a morning but I can only imagine how good it would have been if someone wasn't doing the irish jig in the middle of the bubble line right when the rises started.

In other news, I picked up a new skate deck today that needed some artwork. I plastered that sucker with some fishing stickers for the hell of it.

And yes, I picked up skating again after about a 20 year hiatus. I will warn you if you attempt this...your body does NOT heal as fast as it did when you used to skate. Half my arm is black and blue,l and my knee is a giant scab, but I can still grind a 6 ft halfpipe!