4-28-2010 will be marked on the calender as a great day. Evidently, my friend Julie informed me via Facebook that it was "Wesak Full Moon", my buddy Derek from work had a baby boy that weighed 9lbs, 4oz named Ian JAMES STEWART, and I... caught my very first trout using a fly rod and a dry fly. A native Brook Trout.
I took off work an hour early to get up to the Davidson, stopped by the fly shop, grabbed a couple of flies and some tying materials and headed up stream.
It was a beautiful afternoon at the Davidson.
You prolly can't see it but there's a momma duck with 4 baby ducks that passed by as I was fishing. I scurried to take a photo and wished that I had the DSLR for moments like this.
The Davidson is beautiful but I can see how it could get very crowded on the weekends.
Here's a photo of the Brookie I managed to bring in. Wow, what an indescribable feeling.
I caught this pretty fella on a fly that was purchased a couple of weeks ago in Cherokee but I was excited to see that I got a couple of bites and failed to set the hook on some of my very own Adams flies tied at home.
This past Thursday was my birthday (April 8th). So I planned a mini fishing trip with my beautiful Fiance', the dog, my brother, his wife and my lil' nephew. I arrived at the campsite with my camper and my dog on Friday morning to set up. As I stepped out of the truck, my dog looked at me and said: "I know you don't eat fish, I know this; but I'm gonna take you fishn' today, 'cause it's Friday; you ain't got no job... and you ain't got shit to do. "
After I finished setting up the camper, I headed out to start slaying the ol' Trouts. The water had been a bit murky from all the rain the day before so the bites were slow. I switched to a black/tan rooster tail spinner with a black shield and brought this lil' guy in for the release.
My Brothers family showed up and I had a surprise for the lil' nephew. A spiderman fishing pole with real fishing line, a spiderman tackle box and a fake rubber fish to practice casting. I took some time and taught him how to cast and he picked it up fast. He kept saying, "I wanna catch a REAL fish." I said, "You do?" He said "Yea !" So I, of course said. "Aight den".
Here's some photos of the lil' fisherman.
Here's a video.
The next morning I woke up at the butt-crack of dawn, put my waders on and headed up stream. This time I was lucky to have my lovely fiance' Jessica and my "know it all" brother with me. No joke, first cast I pulled this hog out of the river on a 4lb test spin-reel. My brother took the photo. He weighed out at: 4.25lbs and was 20.5" long.
I ended up with 3 keepers that day. All in all, it was pretty slow once again.
I decided to practice some casting with my new fly rod and reel that was handed down by my hommies Mike Noh and Aaron Dunn. The shit's hard. In the famous words of Aaron T. Dunn: "Fly fishing is a deep deep rabbit hole that I've been down before." I believe him. I've already started my decent down the deep hole by tying flies, buying flies, buying supplies and talking to guides. The shit's fun though. What better hobby for an O.G. like me to get into to stay out of trouble?
There was a point during the day where i snapped a Wooly Bugger (fly tied to imitate a leach or a minnow) off my fly line and I could see it at the bottom of the crick. This Wooly Bugger cost me close to $2 and so I wasn't about to leave it behind so I reached down a picked it up getting my shirt sleeve wet. I then realized that a bit of water had gotten inside of my waders. Little did I know that my i-phone was in my front pouch pocket sitting in a pocket of water. Bummerrrr.
My phone had all of the above photos on it plus the videos of my nephew catching his first Trouts. I wanted to cry. I carry my phone so that I can document these wonderful times and so that I can have proof as I tell my stories and it's a risk that I'm willing to take.
I almost always talk to my self when I fish for the trouts. I also like to talk to the water as if my mother can hear me telling her how lucky of a person I am to have all of these wonderful "things". My mother LOVED trouts and it wasn't till after her death that I started pulling in these monster trouts on the regular.
As I was walking back to my camper thinking about the loss of my iphone, a saying from a movie kept playing over and over in my head. "You win some, you lose some. But you live, you live to fight another day. " Later that weekend, I would dry my iphone out and realize that it actually works again.
My brother's family left that afternoon.
Sunday morning I caught this guy right in front of my camper. This was a chance to redeem my prize catch being that I soaked my iphone photos, so I woke Jessica up and asked her very nicely to take a photo with her DSLR camera. I was relieved that I had a good photo of a big trouts for the weekend.
This Trouts had a ton of stuff in it's belly. I like to cut open the bellies to see what all the trouts have been eating.
1 yellow salmon egg, 1 red salmon egg, 1 red rubber worm attached to a hook with an attached looped leader, a small natural nymph and a nother hook. wow.
As you can see here, this guy had a history. His bottom lip was split totally in half from people trying to pull him out but couldn't. There was a big hole under his eye where maybe a hook had gotten caught and he was pretty beat up.
I think an appropriate name for this old trouts would be Moby Dick.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
This is my first attempt at tying a #12 Adams Fly. I really enjoyed tying this fly and I think fly tying will take over my interest in building models.
This weekend was the opening weekend for being able to fish the hatchery supported rivers in NC. I haven't hooked a fish in a couple of months so as you can imagine, things are getting crazy around these parts.
This is where you park if you wanna catch the Trouts.
We were walking up stream when we saw a raccoon print so i figured I should take a snapshot.
National Geographic style.
There was point during the day when I looked up and these 2 Canadian Geese scared the TAR outta me.
... so i crept up to them like the alligator hunter and took some more snapshots.
I named this one "Cherokee" and I named the other one "Feather Dropper From the Northeast"
This is my buddy Chris fishing with much confidence. This was his first time fishing for Trouts. I think he's officially "Hooked".
This is what he looks like looking down stream. (for the ladies)
This was his catch for the day.
This was mine.
We opened the bellies of the Trouts and found this Crayfish head inside the big un'.
It was a good day. I spent a lot of time helping my buddy with his gear but it was totally worth it to have another buddy to fish with from time to time.
