July 7, 2009
Got to go fishing for about an hour last night. Went to the homewaters, and they were already closing the gates to where I usually park. I found another spot to park in, and got geared up.
Walked down to the river, and it looked amazing. Water was about as clear as I’ve seen it in a long time. I waded down and back, but only caught a few blue gills. Nothing big this time…..
June 29, 2009
It is definitely that time of year. The bulletin boards I frequent are all buzzing with stories about the hex hatch happening up in northern Michigan. I did some poking around you tube and found this video that provides a good explanation of fishing during the hex hatch:
June 20, 2009
I was looking for Dutch Oven recipes and stumbled onto this really good introduction to dutch oven cooking.
If you ever wanted to to give it a try, this article lays out the basics pretty good:
May 23, 2009
So, after visiting my favorite local fishing spot twice within the last couple weeks, I was finally able to catch some fish today. The local water has been washed out because we have had an overabundance of rain so far this year, and I was glad to see the water the way it was this morning.
I was somewhat wary about going today because fishing during Memorial Day weekend can be ruined very quickly by people who have are not in nature to be at peace, and would rather do quite the opposite. There happened to be an entire boy scout troop doing some Memorial Day camping near where I parked the car. Interestingly, there was a handful of them already fishing at one “my” spots. So, after getting geared up I headed in the opposite direction.
The river was clear enough to see the bottom, and the water temp was below 60. I almost wish I could talk to the DNR about stocking this place with trout because I think they could survive, but then it would probably get overrun with anglers. Anyways, I battled mosquitoes in between casts as I made my way down the the river until arriving at a familiar pool that I thought I might have a chance in. Sure enough, my first fish of the day was a chunky little creek chub who took a woolly bugger quite eagerly.
I couldn’t stand the mosquitoes any longer so I fished my way back to the car, and sprayed my stetson and shirt sleeves with some bug spray. I noticed all the boy scouts went to go eat breakfast, and decided it was my opportunity to fish “the honey hole.” I thought if I positioned myself in the right spot, I may be able to drop my woolly bugger next to a tree emerging from the far bank, and just might get lucky. After the second cast I felt a big tug and then a weight that felt like a dumbbell was just tied to the end of my line. The fish started to fight, my rod bent over, and I knew I had a decent sized fish on. After a couple minutes of tussling with the fish, I had it in my hand. A nice sized smallmouth between 12 and 14 inches long. In this river, this guy is one of the monsters.
Just after I released the big guy, I heard a “gloop” across the the river. I quickly tied on a popper hoping that I might get some top water action as well. On the second cast, I had another fish on, and it was fighting like another smallie. I knew it wasn’t huge, but pound for pound, those fish like to fight.
I waded upstream for another hour or so. On my way upstream I saw a longnosed gar swim past me, probably over 2 feet long. Today I fished some beautiful pieces of water, but I again I wish it had some trout taking up residency for extra fun. The next fish I saw was at a mucky pond just off the river. A big sploosh got my attention, and I took a seat to wait and see if it happened again. Several minutes passed by, and a fish over 12 inches lept almost 2 feet from the water to take an insect flying overhead. While I’m not exactly sure what type of fish it was, it definitely had some spunk.
As I waded downstream back to my mini-van (which I think I may start calling the fish van, like Traver’s fish car), I hooked a little blue gill on a dry fly – a white wulff actually. I continued back to my car, and saw that the park was being overrun by a secondary event other than the already present boy scouts. It was time to head home.
May 16, 2009
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/cms.php?n=DTWyeardate
A lot of local water is washed out, but I hear reports of fishi being caught so I guess they still need to eat…
May 12, 2009
My grandfather’s 90th birthday was this past weekend. As a gift, some of my family helped clean his house. My mom called me and said she had found an old tackle box, and they were going to throw it away. I told her that I wouldn’t mind taking a look at it.
Well, a couple days later my mom gave me the tackle box. I cracked it open and there were three sinkers, a pack of huge hooks, and fly box.
I couldn’t believe it. I figured there would be some old spinners maybe, but not a fly box. My family grew up in East Jordan, MI and my great-grandmother’s house was on a trout creek. So, I guess it makes sense that my grandpa had some flies.
Here is a pic of the box:
Inside the box, there is a few wet flies and a few poppers:
There is a small logo on the inside:
I did a quick Google search and it didn’t turn up anything on the SFT company, but it did turn up a Ebay listing with a similar fly box – and it was going for 99 cents. It may not be worth a lot, but it has a lot of character and I’m glad to keep it in the family.
April 30, 2009
My daughter is quickly approaching her first birthday, and my wife and I are quickly approaching the end of our sanity. Well, it may not be the drastic, but we definitely needed a vacation. We were worried it might be an extra burden to take her on a trip, but I felt we needed to get away. So, we went to visit some friends down in Tennessee thinking that it was not too far to drive.
Our first stop along the way was at the Creation Museum. The museum is out near the Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana border close to the Cincinnati Airport. The facility is amazing. They had a series of exhibits that were themed around topics about creation, but the overall theme was showing man’s sinful nature and how to reconcile with God. There was a life-size portion of Noah’s ark you could stand in, various movies, and a special speaker was presenting on the day we were there. I even got to feed a camel at the petting zoo on the grounds.
We then traveled to the Montgomery Bell Inn in Tennessee. This is a state park, that is also a resort with a full hotel on site. While we did have a couple issues while staying here, overall it was a very nice place to stay. The workers were friendly, and you couldn’t ask for a better view. Every room in the hotel overlooks the lake, so no one has a bad view. I was able to catch a few blue gills right out side the hotel, which was fun on my 3 weight fly rod.
The next fishing adventure came when my friend Matt and I took his really nice canoe out on the Harpeth River. As we were putting in the canoe, there were fish rising everywhere. I was expecting a few small mouth, but it was pretty crazy. From what I could tell it looked like gar, but it was hard to tell. Unfortunately it was the last fish we would see on that canoe trip. The first big gravel bar we came to, we pulled over and started casting.
As we floated down the river, we actually passed a group of three fly fisherman armed with fishing kayaks. You can see them off in the background of this picture:
One common theme along the river was turtles. Every 10 feet there were a half dozen of them, and they usually slid off their log as we came by. Matt was able to steer us in close to this brave one for a picture:
One thing rhar stuck me about Tennessee was the amount of rock everywhere. I am used to sand or clay, but there everything was rock. The banks of the Harpeth either led out to some pasture, or were amazingly tall rock cliffs:
The biggest town near the Montgeomery Bell Inn seems to be Dickson, but just to the east is the small city of White Bluff that had two really good places to eat. First, there was a Mexican restaurant called El Monte that had amazing food. I got some tamales on our first visit, and we had to go back again. The food joint was called Carl’s Perfect pig. They had amazing BBQ, and I especially like the corn cakes (basically a cornmeal pancake). This was also my daughter’s introduction to sweet tea – she loved it. Click here for a blog post on this cool little restaurant.
Matt and I went out for one last fishing expedition in his trusty canoe the day before we headed home. There are actually three lakes available at the Montgomery Bell State Park, and we ended up at Lake Woodhaven. I was hoping to get into some bass, but instead we got into a handful of blue gill. Here was the view as we paddled across the lake:
While there were a ton of insects and a bunch of lizards, there really didn’t seem to be a bunch of critters running around. However, we did bump into some newly hatched geese on the lake:
The highlight of the day was when Matt switched over to a fly that he tied himself. A few minutes later he caught his first fish his own fly; a decent little bluegill.
And yes, I caught a few too:
Before we left Tennessee, our last stop was at the Nashville. We had fun looking at all the animals, and as we walked into the corner of the park it turned into a bamboo forest. While I don’t know much about making bamboo rods, I thought it was cool to be standing in a bamboo forest, and it was ironic that I wore my fly fishing t-shirt that day as well:
Upon arriving back in Michigan, I was met with a torrential downpour on the I-275 detour around I-75. Every creek and drainage ditch we passed was overflowing. I thought I might be able to hit my homewaters on my last vacation day, as it doesn’t always get blown out like everything else. Upon arrival, the water was over the banks and moving to fast. Almost every river and lake in the area has had too much rain, and it keeps raining. Hopefully soon, the fishing will begin before the next season is already over.
Overall, this was a trip of many firsts. My daugther’s first vacation, first stay at a hotel, first time out of state, and her first taste of sweet tea. It was Matt’s first time taking his canoe out on a river and his first fish caught on his own fly. It was my first time in Tennessee, my first time a the Creation Museum, and the first time I didn’t tip over on a canoe trip. I’m glad we went.
March 19, 2009
After two days of Spring-like weather, and a couple weeks after most of the snow has melted, the weather man said it would be overcast and 50 degrees. I figured it might just be time to get the rod and reel out.
I headed up to my lunch-time fishing hole and tied on a soft hackle emerger. By the end of my lunch hour I had caught my first fish of 2009, as well as two more. Three little blue gills decided they were hungry enough to take a fly.
March 9, 2009
So, this weekend was the 209 Midwest Fly Fishing Expo hosted by the Michigan Fly Fishing Club (www.mffc.org). Both my daughter and my wife went with me to the show, and we had fun looking at all the different vendors and a few seminars. I didn’t really buy much this year, because I have pretty much everything I need now. I did pick up what looks to be a good book.
When I arrived at the show, I was hoping to catch the demo from Jim Teeny regarding fishing with sinking tip lines, because I’ve never used one before. I am planning on fishing a few lakes this year, and may attempt to to use a sink tip line and wanted to see if there were any tips on fishing it. Here is a picture of Jim Teeny at the casting pond:
We walked around the expo a bit, and then we needed to find a spot to find my daughter. I steered us towards the fly tying area because Bob Jacklin (www.jacklinsflyshop.com) was beginning his seminar discussing several of his favorite ties.
I think the highlight of the trip up to the expo was that I got to meet Ron Barch from Alder Creek Rods and Alder Creek Publishing (www.aldercreekrods.com and www.aldercreekpublishing.com). A friend of the family happens to be friends with Ron, and gave my father-in-law a copy of a book by Kathy Scott called “Headwaters Fall as Snow”. Ron said his favorite book was “Moose in the Water/Bamboo on the Bench”, so I bought a copy and Ron was nice enough to autograph the book, along with the book’s artist Michael Miling. He also had some really nice bamboo rods for sale. I would highly recommend checking out his websites above.
After being there a couple of hours, I think my daughter had information overload and all of a sudden decided it was time to take a nap – right inside the Jeep papoose.
Another Midwest Fly Fishing Show and another Trout season is just around the corner now…
February 15, 2009
I have not really posted much during the winter months.
I’ve read the following books over the last few weeks:
Trout Madness by Robert Traver
The River Home by Jerry Dennis
Brook Trout and the Writing Life by Craig Nova
I’ve tied up a few flies.
The Michigan Fly Fishing Expo is in about one month.
The snow pack has melted flooding most of the local water, and then some more snow came back today.
I started looking at river maps.
Opening day is 2 months and 10 days away.
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