Took an Old Friend Fishing Today....and got goose-egged. Literally.

I took my longest-running partner fishing today.  Headed up to the Mettowee in Middle Granville, New York.  Beautiful day!





Water was incredibly low and clear.  Nothing happening, so I thought I'd take a photo of my old friend:

I built this old friend in 1981, while a grad student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  Three decades plus a little ago.  First rod I ever built, and rarely fish anymore.   During my summer research on whitetail deer in western Kentucky and Tennessee, it got fished every day on Kentucky Lake.  It has caught hundreds of bream, crappie and largemouths.  Eight feet long, a 6 weight.   Its action makes you slow down and enjoy the day, something I needed to do today.  I just wanted to spend a day swinging streamers and soft hackles.

But there was nothing doing on the Mettowee, other than a gear fisherman that pestered me for half an hour about fly fishing.  Man, did I want him to go away.  I know, I know, coulda shoulda made a convert, but sometimes I just can't go that extra mile.   My bad.

So we...my old Orvis friend and I, headed down to the Batten Kill to finish the day.  There were two gents enjoying lunch in the shade where I wanted to park, so altered the plan a little.  But had to walk past them to get into the river.  From out of state and very friendly, they even gave me a big pretzal.  Enjoyed the chat.  But needed to get into the river.

Started wading, heading downstream.  An island splits the river; I took the right fork.  Flood-piled debris everywhere, as I clambered over a big stump, a canada goose jumped up squaking.  I almost stepped on the reason why:

Obviously, she and her partner aren't choosey about the neighborhood!  They hung around, she honking at me as I fished through:

I finally got around them.  She made her way back to the nest while the gander stayed behind in a little back eddy.  All is right with the world again, I thought.

Wrong.  I was jerked back to reality with a great thrashing in the water behind me.  It was the gander.  He did it a couple times, and I thought he was just having a great old bird bath.  As I watched, I couldn't see his head.  He got out into the current, would thrash about for a second, then float 10 feet towards me.  Again, I couldn't see his head...it was like he was locked in a sleeping posture...with his head underwater.  Not good.  What to do?

I have handled hundreds of live birds in a couple of my past lives, from woodcock to grouse to wild turkeys to...canada geese.   Time to get involved.   I laid my old Orvis friend down along the shore and got out into the current  anticipating the bird's likely float line.  He would still thrash, and finally saw me and really thrashed.  But kept losing ground to the current (and likely a lack of oxygen since his head was underwater more than it was above it).   I got to him and saw the problem:

That lure had his face pinned to his leg.   There was space between his body and where his head and leg were "attached".   I jabbed my wading staff into that space, locking him next to me.  One thing I learned about handling birds long ago was:  be decisive.   Tentative has no place here.  Reached down, grabbed that SOB Rapala, and yanked. 

Bird flies away.  It's all good again.

Mini-rant:  If you need that many hooks to hook and land a trout, take up golf and get the hell out of the river.

Rant over.

Oh, as I was leaving - after a long day on two rivers - fish started rising to big caddis in the deep pool near where I parked my truck.  Thirty years ago, when I built my old friend, I would've wadered back up and gone for 'em.  Not anymore.

Double Duty Pickup Rod Rack

A Rod Loft Pro rod rack for your vehicle costs about $129.99 at Cabelas.  It holds six rods, and is supposed to work in just about any vehicle using a variety of attachments on the end of the rods that support the whole deal.  Great.   But I didn't have $129.99 and I don't tote 6 rods around and I drive a plain old very long F-150 with aluminum cap.  Hmmmm, what to do?

I've had one cargo bar to keep things from heading all the way up to the front of the 8-foot bed for a long time.  But I've always put it down low.  I got it at Tractor Supply for $24.99.   Surfing around at Cabelas some more, I found that they sell just the 3-rod holders without the bars and clamps and ratchets for $29.99 the pair.   See where we're going with this?

So, back to Tractor Supply for another cargo bar, order the rod thingies online from Cabelas, and I now have a 3-rod rack in the making for $79.97 plus some tax and wicked high shipping from Cabelas.  Let's call it 90 bucks.

The rod thingy attaches to the cargo bar with a couple hefty zip ties:

You may notice that both my cap and my truck's cab have sliding windows.  And its a crew cab truck with an 8-foot bed.  In fair weather, I can haul 13' rods fully assembled.

In crummy weather (admittedly that seems to be most of the time) I move the forward bar back towards the rear bar and break the rods down into two pieces, no problemo.

And I still have my cargo bar!

By the way, you math whizzes out there have probably already figured out that you can buy the two cargo bars and two sets of rod thingies for about 110 bucks....cheaper than the Rod Loft Pro gizmo, but you don't get all the hanger doo-dads.  You just have a nice heavy duty set-up that might work in other vehicles, too.  Happy rod racking!

Oh, here's the beast at rest:

17,000 pageviews as of this morning!

This blog is a lot of fun for me, and I want to thank every one that checks in to see what's new.  My first post was on March 13, 2011, so we've been up for just over a year, and just a few minutes ago the actual pageview count was 17,003 views.  Pretty neat!   By far the most popular post has been the rod rack step-by-step, with more than 560 views.  I posted it back in January.  Coming in second is the most recent post about landlocked love for the Deep Green Beauty; 304 page views.

Where do blog visitors live?  The majority - more than 9500 - live in the U.S.   More than 4500 come from Canada.  Its always fun to see where viewers live...Russia, Italy, Latvia, Brunei, Sweden, Argentina, you name the country, seems like someone from there visited the blog.

Some folks come to the blog from forums I frequent.  The following send lots of visitors here, and if you haven't checked them out, you should!
       www.speypages.com
       www.nsflyguy.ca
       www.salmonfishingforum.com
       www.classicflyrodforum.com

Thanks again for stopping by!
Gary

Landlocked Love for the Deep Green Beauty!

My friend John from Montreal suggested we hit one of the northern New York rivers yesterday for holdover - and maybe even...dare I say it? - bright fish in from the lake.  It's a 3.5 hour drive for me, so I go up the night before and meet John at the donut store at early dark thirty.  Picked up a coffee, dropped my truck off, and headed for the first of the pools we'd fish at first light.  There was a steady rain; the temp was about 40 degrees F.

Not much going on at that first pool, so we moved on.  Water temp 38 degrees, and pushes of ice occasionally screwing things up.

Second pool's a charm!  John hooks up but the fish gets off.

He lands one a few minutes later:

John's flies make other tyers envious but the fish love them:

His fly box is a thing of beauty and shows the pride he takes in his flies.  I shoulda swiped it.  "Geez, John, I dunno, did it fall out of your jacket out in the river or something???"

I can be a good student.  John told me where to stand, how far to cast, and be ready to hang on.  That worked!

Turned out to be a fine holdover landlocked:

The Deep Green Beauty strikes again!

Breaktime was a special treat!  John brought Sopresatta that he and his family make.  Simply awesome.  I drooled so much that he finally broke down and gave me the little I left on the plate to take home!

John hooked up again and landed a fish with several lamprey scars!

They seemed to be healing well:

Just a few yards downriver, the Beauty got more love:

If these mallards knew what a master John is at tying spey flies with bronze mallard wings, they'd have left in a hurry!

Well, there you have it: my first tugs of 2012.  Thanks, John!!

(pics of me  by John, of John by me)

Gold Hooks

Bought a pack of Montana Fly Company's 7099GD gold hooks, size six, to see what they are like.  Turns out to be a nice, well-made hook, from Japan, chemically sharpened.   It'll be fun to see what the salmon have to say about them, but I suspect I'll be buying more.

At least I got out there!

Beautiful day in southern Vermont and eastern upstate New York today, so I better go fishing!  Headed to the year-'round section of the Batten Kill.  Air temp. 67 degrees and no wind.  Lovely.  And nobody parked at the Spring Hole, how cool is that?   Down through the cornfield and into the river:

That's the good news.  The bad news is:  water temp 36 degrees, and Gary managed to last 1.5 hours and it appears that New York trout have not yet gotten the memo that the Deep Green Beauty is the tastiest morsel they'll ever sample!  No love for the Beauty!

But....and you knew this was coming....at least I got out there.

Celtic Beauty - Spey Style

I thought it would be fun to tie up a Spey-styled Celtic Beauty.  I dyed all the feathers:  Deep Green for the Whiting American Rooster Cape wings and Claret for the body (blue eared pheasant) and front (ringneck pheasant) hackles.  The rear body is Uni's Bright Yellow floss; the front body is golden SLF dubbing.  Rib is oval gold Lagartun and the hook is a Daiichi 2059, size 3.

I couldn't resist playing with one of the "special effects" thingies in Picasa if you're wondering why the photo is foggy!

I'm looking forward to see how she goes in July up on the Miramichi!

                                                                    Click on the pic!