View from the bench...

The local stream is getting a fall stocking tomorrow. Time to get busy. Nuff' said.

A Forgotten Trip

I kinda dig the memories feature in Facebook. Once in a great while, I'll come across something I posted that jogs some fun memories.

This picture of Nick was taken on a particularly chilly morning, 8 years ago on the Lehigh River. In hindsight, the hike out to that island in the fog was probably not the safest thing to accomplish.

I still remember that day vividly. Fishing was slow for us. Nick caught a Smallmouth. I caught a single Rainbow. But then there was Jack. He stuck with the same damn black bugger all day even after no hits for the first few hours and then smashed some beastly browns. Persistence sometimes pays off. Any time we want to blame it on the conditions, lack of insects etc, he always puts that to rest. Damn it Jack. :)

Where has the time gone?

Time flies. I recently just unpacked all my fly tying items again and realized it's been well over a year since my last blog post. To be honest, I have not been fishing much. 100 fish weeks have turned into 3-4 fish months. I haven't caught a trout since April. 

My children are growing up. Michael is now 7 and in second grade, and Ethan is 4 and in Pre-K. Children require time. I found myself starting to attend children's birthday parties, karate practice, school functions, and started leaning towards other hobbies that they were more interested in such as Star Wars collecting, and more recently, Pokemon Go. We've also traveled all over, everywhere from Florida to Bermuda, to Jamaica, to Maine, to Vegas, and to California. I did catch my first Bonefish on a fly, hooked into an Alligator while fly fishing poppers at Disneyworld, and got chased by 3 sharks in the salt flats of Abaco Island. All these are still tucked into my memory and will hopefully serve as future blog posts.

Fast Forward a few years later, my basement can't handle any more Star Wars items, we've caught just about all the Pokemon, and I sat down at the vise last night for the first time in ages. I realize how bad I am at tying dry flies now. But once I did finish a close to perfect size 18 parachute olive, I'm ready to use it. It's game time. Rods are being restrung this week, and I'm ready to get back into action.

I started revisiting all the old blogs I used to read. Some are defunct. Some are thriving with new fancy HTML 5 templates. Some haven't changed much and just keep spitting out great content. (Mike- stay gold, Pony Boy). There's also a slew of new tools, and tying materials available from all these companies. Looks like I got some spending to do, and some fish to catch.

I'm older, fatter, slower, grayer, and a bit more blind that I used to be, but age be damned, I'm back in the game.

See you on the water, possibly with my Stormtrooper buddies.