Let's go fishing Dude

Moderate level of depression around here, due to the assault on public employees. A guy can take the lowest salary of all his college buddies in the course of serving the public and still be attacked as having too much. Layoff the taxing of the wealthy; instead take pensions and salaries from pisant public employees. Jesus, who wants to get into that. The point of it as intro material is that one of few escapes is to get out and see planet earth as it's meant to be seen: in reality. In dirt and water and the perfect geometry. Hold some fish. I worship fish 100x more than any politician. For the record that is. If a guy sits around languishing at the house with all the pixels and soundwaves - man - he's going to die right there. Depression and disrespect floating around. So he needs to leave and remember that even if all goes to hell it really isn't a lot more than pixels and little grooves written into silicone media somewhere that represent bank accounts. If it goes to hell he can take advice from Greg Brown and become a hippy in a tent. A much more valorous endeavor anyway. So that's the point here: remind onself of the great Walter Sobchak: Fuck it Dude, let's go bowl. Or if you're in the Midwest, fish.

Before I get into the report, one more thing on the plan to attack the 2% of the state expenditures that goes to state government: suck it Trbek.

Fished 11 AM to 3 PM
One of few streams that was not blown out
Nymphed all day with standard PT and HE
Saw a couple small black stoneflies
Midges were about
Waited for rising fish but they never came
Water was very clear
Probably 15 fish caught, of which several were decent, one pretty nice

Danny came along on this day. He didn't execute all components of fishing, but he did about what would be expected of a ~4 year old kid. Fought some fish, unhooked a few, held and released a lot of them.

This little brown came on the second cast. The action was right to keep things moving along. Paced very well. Picture confirms that he gets pretty excited about fish.






This water gave up at least six trout. Even after Danny threw multiple sticks at it. The red line delineates the drift. Up past the overhanging veg, mend to right and drift through slot. Take. Take. Etc. One nice fish came here.


You can see that his fish holding got better as the day ticked by.


This pic requires some explanation. I regularly urge the kids to place fish back in the water after a short examination and appropriate respects paid. They don't always comply immediately. So as I was urging Danny on I cast again and caught another trout. Kid asked to hold two trout and I couldn't say no. Both fish swam off puzzled but okay. Kid was fascinated.



The guy is an impermeable warrior when it comes to water, mud, temperatures, discomfort, etc. He walks in over his boot tops without pause or complaint. Within half an hour he was covered in mud and pretty much soaked. My honest assessment is that his attention is on exploration, goofing around, singing/chanting, asking questions, etc. enough so that he glosses over discomfort. I did what I could to keep him in good shape, and he did more than his part with respect to keeping on. This outing served as a prompt though to get my kids waders. They won't need them but for certain situations; would be good for days like this one.






Yellow Sally aka Golden Stone




So this guy logged a winter trout fishing outing before his fourth birthday. One of my favorite days for sure.