The last month or so has been a bit on the disjointed side. Way too many deadlines and past-due deadlines coupled with presentations that made finding time to fish hard to find. I did fish and had a couple of good trips and some notable events. I failed to take many photos, though. Doubtlessly this is because of my intense focus on the stream leads me into a state of not-thinking, a state of oneness with nature, a state of zen….or simply a state of laziness. Please accept my apologies.
Let’s start this hodgepodge back in May—Memorial Day weekend. My wife and I planned to run the [url=http://www.bolderboulder.com/]Bolder Boulder 10K road race[/url] on Memorial Day. This is something that I have been doing almost every year since my mom died as my Memorial Day observance. For a number of reasons we were not able to leave until Friday night. Can’t very well drive all the way to Boulder with such a late start so we stopped overnight at Kanopolis where I got up early the next morning to check in on the seep stream.
I also wanted to break in a new rod and reel that I had purchased from Ronn.
Mission accomplished. I had very little time, fished less than an hour but the first fish on the new rod was this brown.
Headed on out to Colorado later that morning. Spent the rest of the afternoon in Boulder and then went up to Estes to spend the rest of the weekend.
Sunday started cold which helped slow down the runoff. My wife and I headed up the Roaring River to see if I could round up a Greenback Cutt or two before the run-off got too intense. Succeeded.
But we had spent too much time earlier in the morning eating breakfast at the Notchtop Cafe and Bakery. By the time we hiked back down to try out other creeks the water was running pretty high. We tried a couple of other hikes to look for potential water.
But mostly there was a lot of snow.
Later in the day I did catch a couple of browns on streamers in Big Thompson–mostly on luck. I didn’t really get a chance to fish long enough to figure out any pattern.
Ran the race on Monday—ran my age which I’ve done for the last 18 or so years–meaning my time in minutes was less than my age. Back when I was 45 that meant more than it does now that I’m 60. Hopefully, next year will continue the streak.
Ten days later I found myself back out at Kanopolis for a wedding. It is amazing the difference in the seep stream. This time there was very little open water. I did manage to catch one but I won’t be heading back unless a flood clears out the algae or until next fall.
I spent the last two weeks of June back up in New York. My wife and I had to share a vehicle so that put a serious limitation into my time on the water. I’d start each day with a quick 2 hours fishing down at the local stream–the one I’ve reported on before. I caught fish every time and in general had a good time but I took very few photos. I was just a bit too rushed for time since walking in a mile and a half comes out of the two hour time allotment. Occasionally, I tried to record a bit of the scenery.
(a star-nosed mole)
I caught rainbows and browns all through the gorge on dries, copper johns, pheasant tails, hair’s ear with a soft hackle collar and cone-head streamers. Once in a while I took a photo.
One morning when I got there particularly early I found that the pool next to the parking lot was full of small stockers taking something in the surface film. As a lurker on the Drake I’ve greatly admired the photos taken by a Drakian that goes by the name of Fullwells. I’ve been hoping for a chance to emulate his style. These rising trout were me first chance to work on some photo skill. I spent over an hour taking about 100 or more photos trying to time the rise just right and capture it with the lens. I thought I’d share some of the shots here—as a baseline. I have a long ways to go. I’m not even sure they are worth saving let alone sharing. My thought is that if I do develop better skills with a few hundred more attempts then others viewing these images will be able to say–“Hey I can do that. Look at how much he learned.” Of course, that assumes that the shots will get better–they may not.
A couple of shots were so close that I’m encouraged to go try again. I imagine my next trip to the Ozarks will be mostly taking pictures and very little fishing.
The last week in June, my daughter-in-law, granddaughters, my wife and I all loaded up and headed up to one of those [url=http://www.thewaldheim.com/]resort camps[/url] in the Adirondacks on Big Moose Lake. You know the kind of place where the “wood boy” comes in your cabin at 5:30 to start the fire in the fireplace for you and make sure your wood pile is full. Since most mornings started in the low 50’s this was much appreciated. I was hoping for some time on some streams but no such luck. I spent an hour one afternoon and caught a monster 4 inch native brookie that was camera shy. Amazing combat fishing with Alders and thick brush making moving difficult and fishing nearly impossible.
We had a great time as a family with canoeing
and doing a little natural history.
pitcher plants and sundews: carnivorous plants
The highlight though was fishing with the girls one night on the dock. Realize that Big Moose Lake despite its former history as a good fishing lake, is one of the lakes that went totally fishless in the 80’s due to acid rain. It has made a recovery though it is not known for fishing these days. Warning: these are granddaughters fishing with gear and worms–not fly tackle.
Both were having a tough time of it to start out.
Then the older one finally caught a nice Rock Bass:
Then the younger one hooked into something that wrapped her up in the dock. Good thing Grandpa was there and she was using 15 pound test line….
What the heck is this?
I think she is ruined for life….
She is the camp celebrity now. Her picture is posted outside the dining hall for all to see. She has caught the biggest fish anyone at that camp has seen in years. Pretty cool stuff and a good way to wrap up the hodgepodge of June.
BW