Monday, December 27, 2010

The Calm After the Storm

The east coast got hammered yesterday and last night, and we were fortunate enough to be just west of the real mess.  We got about 3 inches of snow, but the wind is still ripping through the trees and the wind chill was and is around zero tonight.  No fishing today, but here's a few pictures of the local trout stream looking just fine as it flows into 2011.
 




Mr. Q and I are still going fishing on 01/01/11, ice or not, cold or not.  If he catches anything, I'll post it here and show his pretty face.

Happy Holidays and if you got a gift card, use it to get yourself a good hook sharpener.  It's about time!!

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas Everyone

Wishing all of you a happy and healthy holiday season! 


The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.           Joseph Campbell 

 Peace.

Monday, December 20, 2010

I Should Show Up More Often....

The other day I was talking to my agent, Mr. Q., who prefers to remain anonymous, and he told me I needed to post on my blog more often.  So I am doing that now, because he leaves for Chicago tomorrow and might not get to read it after today until after the holidays.  And that would surely be a bummer for him, as he frequently likes to bust my balls under his other pseudonym, "Anonymous".

He is right of course, but as much as I love to write, I prefer this to be an exercise in originality rather than like so many other blogs that primarily regurgitate someone elses creation.  That's not to say I haven't spit up a few items written or created by others, I have, but do so sparingly.

I tend to have more to say when I've been spending time on the water, and lately, I've been spending most of my time in Boston.  So I see this twice a week from the train:


And this on Friday afternoon as I return to Gotham: 

But this is what I really would like to see:

 
So imagine if you will, standing knee deep in this cool, flowing stream under a late afternoon sun on a late September day.  The green leaves dull as Autumn begins to steal their color. The river is low, but the cool, humid air has kept it perfect for blue-winged olives to hatch and ride the surface while small wild brown trout sip every other one in.  Think of it as the ultimate happy hour for both trout and angler.

Sharpen your hooks, you never know when that monster is going to take your fly. 

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Got a New Camera

It's been too long since I posted here, which tells me I've been working way too much and not thinking enough fly fishing.  I almost posted again the other day about another Ms. Leatherlungs on the train ride home Thursday, but I decided I wasn't going to do two posts in a row about long-winded know-it-alls that ride the train and talk as though they are in a room by themselves.

When I have been home, I've been tying quite a bit and writing, so when a friend gave me a new Sony 12 pixel camera, I had to shoot a few flies.  The camera is an inexpensive DSC-W230 - like a $200 camera - he won in a raffle.  The thing takes a decent picture.

Here's a Blue-winged Olive soft hackle emerger I tie that has a pheasant tail abdomen and tail, olive gray dyed austrailian opossum, and a hen hackle collar.  This one was taken with only my tying light on it.  The color is fairly accurate.  

This one was taken with only the overhead room light for illumination. 

These are a bunch of soft hackle Hendrickson emergers I tie in the same manner as the above BWO. They are for a fund raiser the Central Jersey T.U. is doing.

Here is a beadhead Bird's Nest that I used the flash on the camera to take, and the color is exactly as the eye sees it. 

Here's one of my caribou caddis that I took from below, and this one also has very accurate color.  The shape and silhouette aren't bad either, if I were a trout, I'd sure as hell eat it!  

And here is one of the big boys that has been hanging around out back of the house.  He has 9 points, and his rival, who was up on the top of the hill with the does has 10 points.  The two of them duked it out last Saturday and the big guy won after some serious antler crashing - it sounded like a couple of people fighting with broom sticks.  The battle lasted about 5 minutes and was mostly pushing and shoving and banging antlers, no physical damage was done to either buck from what I could see; the 9 pointer suffered a bruised ego, if deer have such a thing.  He walked slowly away with his head down and tail between his legs.  It was cool to watch, they're beautiful animals.  I just wish they would not eat the shrubs......at this point they can't, because they ate them all already............

I'm hoping to fish tomorrow after we get a tree in the A.M., and will post a report if I do. 

And I'll sharpen my hooks!!  You should, too!