September 2013 - Tenkara in the Smokey Mountains

Went down to visit my brother in Georgetown, Kentucky for a few days.  He took us around to see several sites such as the Buffalo Trace and Wooodford distilleries, a Japanese garden, a horse retirement ranch called "Old Friends," and checked out a couple of local restaurants.  

After that we went camping in the rainy, foggy Smokey Mountain National park at the Elkmont campground which had the very loud Little River that flowed through it.  We played tourist for a couple of days checking out some of the main attractions of old churches, water falls, old mills, and cemeteries. Then I had the treat of fishing some of the rivers on the Tennessee side of the park.

The West Prong of the Little Pigeon River

Open during the day, but the Chimney Tops campground is closed at night due to the high amount of bear activity there.  I caught a few rainbow and brook trout on the Tenkara rod.  They were not big, but they were fun to catch in the scenery was great, the water cold, and very few spots taken up by other fisherman.  This river was totally designed for Tenkara fishing!

Middle Prong of the Little River

Had a little luck on this river too, it had a little less gradient to it, less big boulders, and would have been better if I had used a normal fly rod as it it was much wider than the first river. 

I didn't take any photos of the trout caught, apparently I was having too much fun catching them and forgot to snap any photo's of the little guys.

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Fly Fishing Expo 2013

As many of you know this weekend the Tom Helgeson's Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo is taking place.  And holding true to tradition, the past couple of days has been full of fly fishing vendors, presentations, reunions with old friends, and meeting potential new friends.  

This year a met a couple of budding fly tier's, I should say they are already great even if their feet don't quit make it the floor as they are tying in their chairs.  Also there are three representatives (one from Grand Marie, MN, one from Columbus, OH, an one from Colorado) here talking about the latest buzz in the industry, Tenkara fly fishing.  

I didn't see a casting pond this year, but there were two different areas where you could shake a stick to convince you to just buy it, or you can work on casting with the FFF peeps to get rid of some of those bad habits.

So far I scored on a cool rod rack, a funky fish art coffee mug, and a nice brown furnace dry fly cape.  I also donated a little bit to the Project Healing Waters supporting wounded veterans who fly fish and bought a raffle ticket from Twin Cities Trout Unlimited chapter for a bamboo rod made by the hands of the illustrious Dave Norling.

I'm finishing up breakfast right now and am on my over for the final day of fun and tying flies for people on Fly Tier's Row.  

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Tenkara Presentation Delayed

Tenkarausa©

Tonight Sensei Eric and myself (Tenkara kid) were scheduled to give a presentation to our fly fishing club on Tenkara style fishing.  We had gadgets, rods, flies, and a power point presentation all set up to go.  But we got bumped out of our meeting room at Schroeder's by some other riffraff group that went by the St. Paul Winter Carnival planners or something.  So our presentation has been rescheduled for next month.

Regardless, it was good to see the guys and finally meet Eric's very nice wife.  In fly tier's fashion, we made due and quickly conducted a business meeting in the bar in preparation of the upcoming Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo in two weeks. Minutes were taken down on a napkin and then we were back to swapping stories and generally enjoying not being trapped our houses.

I'm looking forward to another great fishing season and with Wisconsin C&R open, I wish you all the best for in your fishing adventures and hope to see you at the Expo!

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2012 Species update, Season Recap, & Thank You

Two fish were added to my fish list in 2012, bringing my total up to 45 different species of fish that I have caught over the years.  The first of the two was due to a planned mission on a summer vacation to Estes Park, Colorado.  Jen and I were fortunate to catch a few gorgeous Greenback Cutthroat trout while hanging out with an awesome local guide.  The second species caught was not planned, not pretty, and not wanted.  While I was trying to make a drift to active steelhead through a technically difficult seam, I was rewarded with a big creek chub on the Wisconsin Brule River that had taken my dropper egg fly.  Good governor!  But it adds to my list, and it relieves the magnificent weight on my shoulders of being able to cross a chub off my list of things to get in my life.  Doh!!  Did I just say that? 

 

The rest of the fish/things caught over the season encompassed my usual fare of rainbows, browns, brookies, smallies, pike, steelhead, trees, rocks, cased caddis, myself, trees, shrubs, logs, many 1st & 2nd cousins of the Snagasaurus family, and sadly not muskies. 

 

While I did fish subsurface with nymphs and streamers this year for many of the above mentioned quarry, all of the trout were caught on dry flies.  The dry fly challenge this year wasn't planned initially.  It started out with great dry fly fishing this spring on the Big Horn River in Montana.  Mother Feiker and I had a lot of fun with it and even came up with ideas on that vacation for patches and stickers for us such as "HA!" (for Headhunters Anonymous-with a picture of fish skull that has one of those voodoo bones going through its' nostrils) and "HHH" (for the Happy Head Hunters).  There were other ideas we came up with too that week, but those were the ones that stuck with us through the summer.

When I returned to my home waters is when I challenged myself to continue on with the "Dry or Die"campaign.  I enjoyed it this summer, it was good timing for me and gave my ol' game of fly fishing a new twist.  Then I bought a Tenkara rod, which also encouraged me to keep fishing on the surface.  Don't worry, I am pretty sure I won't become a dry fly snob or anything like that.  I have been reading more about the Tenkara fishing, and I have learned that there are subsurface tactics that I need to try out if I am going to learn all it has to offer.  In fact I ordered a couple of things online today specifically for Tenkara fishing including some funky hooks for some Tenkara fly patterns I want to attempt to tie. So we will see how that turns out this winter.

As for you, yes you. Thank you very much.  I would like to say thanks to you and all the people that have provided me with positive and encouraging feedback on my blog over the years.  I sometimes forget that people actually read what I write and every time someone says to me "hey, I read that and..." or replies with an email response it makes me smile and brings me warm fuzzies.  Not that I write for those reasons, but it is nice to know people don't always delete my posts when they get sent out to your email inbox. To date, this will be my 147th post since February 2005.  If you are looking for those 16 posts of my first year, you may not find them as they were on my initial attempt at blogging.  You're not missing much as they were, well, kind of weak as I wasn't yet clear with what my intention(s) was going to be with writing a blog at the time.  So there was a conversion period where they were at the time and where the blog is hosted now on Blogger. 

To everyone:
Happy Thanksgiving, tight-lines, be well, namaste, live long and prosper, hug your loved ones, fire-cracker-fist-bump, and all that jazz.

Critter
 

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Rocky Mountain Vacation Summary (Picture Heavy)

As promised to many of you, though a little late, here is a recap of our most recent vacation, we hope you enjoy.  :)

 

 

A week ago we got back from a week vacation with Jen's family.  Troy and I rode our motorcycles out to Estes Park, Colorado while the girls rode together in the Highlander.  We left on Friday with perfect weather drove through South Dakota and arrived on Sunday afternoon to our campsite at Moraine campground in a pretty heavy rain.  It cleared up in an hour or so.  In fact pretty much every day it rained from 2pm to 4pm and was partly cloudy and pretty good the rest of the time.  For temps at the 8,000' level where the campsite was, it was mid to high 40's at night and high 70's to low 80's during the day. But pretty much every day Jen and I wore our fleece jackets as we were higher up where it was chilly and very windy a lot of the time.  At one point in the week we ran into an overlook where the ground all around us was freshly covered with sleet and snow.   

 

Monday, Jen and I went out to explore the park and found that the air was thin up there.  We really noticed it during our hikes, which surprised us since we had changed our workouts at home thinking it would help prepare us for this.  Fact is, we live at 950' in elevation, our campsite was around 8,000', and some of the spots we ended up visiting was between 12,000' to 14,000' in elevation.  We were flatlanders in foreign territory. 

 

We saw elk, lots of mule deer, big horn sheep, moose, gray jay's, fuzzy cute birds called Clark's Nutcracker, smelly llamas, the puppy-like marmots, and pikas.  I have to admit I really liked the marmots and pikas and they made me smile and laugh often.

 

We drove up Trail Ridge road is a must for anyone that goes out there.  I really enjoyed visiting the Toll Memorial Trail that is right off of the road.  There were marmots, pikas, a neat marker at the top of a bolder pile at the top of the hill, and wide open views of many mountains in all directions surrounding us.  Further up the road was the Alpine Visitor center which had a great view and the mountain side was littered with mule deer sunning themselves.

 

We hiked around Bear Lake, Sprague lake (and fished this lake too), several other hikes that led to water falls.  The major trek being up the Longs Peak Trail by Peacock pool on up to the beautiful greenish-blue Chasm Lake, where Jenny dipped her feet into the 35 degree snow melt lake.  Jordon and I went a bit further and dunked our heads in, but Andrew took the prize for stripping down to his boxers and totally jumping in.....twice.  The second time was for the photo for proof of craziness. 

 

Wednesday, Jen and I had a day fishing with a guide.  We fished the Big Thompson river, the St. Vrain river, and the Alluvial Falls where we caught brookies, browns, and Greenback Cutthroat trout.  Our luck was on Hopper and midge patterns like the mercury midge and the RS2.  Later that day is when I landed my first fish on my Tenkara rod, a 10" brookie that took a #14 Hemingway Caddis along the trail of Sprague lake.

 

The evenings were filled with family gathering around the campfire at our campsite with many conversations going on at once with suppers, munchies, cocktails, cigars, and stories to share.  We had three campsites for the thirteen of us, all in a row.  In the mornings we would wake up at sunrise and watch the deer walk among the tents while grazing.  They must have been on the Parks Payroll, as they gave us plenty of photo opportunities every morning.

 

Thursday morning Troy and Laurie headed out to Sturgis, South Dakota on the Harley where they would spend the next week of their vacation at the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally.  The rest of us broke camp Friday morning and all made our ways back to our home states of California, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.  Our 15.5 hour drive via Nebraska with the idea of making it back over two days, turned out to be a 17 hour drive straight through with a small forced break at the Perkins in Albert Lee, MN to wait a thunderstorm out that had winds reaching 55 mph.  Not the best thing to be driving through, pulling a loaded trailer late at night and having been on the road all day.  But really there was nothing between Omaha, NE and Des Moines, IA, and when we reached Des Moines I thought we could make it home with now issues.  We finally pulled in around 3am Saturday morning and immediately found the bed.  A very welcome site for our lower backs after the putting on over 1,000 miles on the motorcycle, long hikes in the mountains, sleeping on the ground all week, and of course after sitting in the truck all day for the drive home. 

 



Calypso Cascades

15 minutes earlier we had clear skies

Clark's Nutcracker

Toll Memorial Boundary Marker

face on this 30' tall boulder.

a Pika

Marmot

 


Moose

Breakfast time

Sprague Lake

Park Ranger & her 3 smelly llamas

Warning!

Chasm Lake

Silly Time!

Me with first Greenback Cutthroat

Jen with first Greenback Cutthroat

Greenback Cutthroat

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Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado...that's where we are going for a one week vacation.  Jen and I spent the whole weekend preparing for our upcoming vacation with her immediate family (about 11 of us all together). 

Jen and I plan on the usual itinerary of some fishing, some photography, some hiking, and hopefully a lot of smiles, relaxation, deepening of my zen practice, and checking out some local watering holes.  We also hope to add the greenback cutthroat to our species list, and the potential additional twist of catching some on my 13' Tenkara Ayu rod that I have recently been fishing with that I bought from Kinni Creek Outfitters.  I don't think that will be too hard, especially since Jen and I booked a 6-hour trip with a local guide from Kirk's Fly shop that was recommended to us by my fellow Tenkara buddy, Eric.

We are adding another twist to this vacation in that Jen her younger sister will be in the Highlander with all the stuff for the vacation and the brother-in- law and I will be riding separately on our motorcycles out there.  I've got a '08 Yamaha Raider 1900, and Troy has a Harley Davidson Fat Boy (96cc I think.  I'm used to metric engine sizes and not sure how that works for a Harley.  Using the Harley engine measurements, I think mine is a 113). But I digress and it doesn't really matter cause, they are cycles and we are riding.  This trip should be a a great adventure. 

Oh and another thing, about five miles away, is a small 13-acre lake I loaded with trout that I want to visit due to it's name, Sprague Lake.  Sprague is one of the six or so spellings our family has that I found while do a lot of research on Ancestry.com, and thought it would be neat to see and maybe take some photos while fishing.  The adventure starts this Friday!  We will be staying at Moraine campground, which from what I have read, is very very basic, which is the way we like it,  Perfect!

The proposed route is the most direct route, but should be a heck of a lot more scenic then going through Nebraska.  We'll be going west via I-90 and have several of us meet up in Sioux City, SD for the night.  Then continue on through the bad lands the next day towards Rapid City or Cheyenne for Saturday night, and finishing up the drive to arrive at the campsite Sunday morning-ish for check-in. 

Updates on Operation Schultz Family Vacation 2012 to be continued.

 

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My last weekend with Ed.

Saturday morning:

So for our last weekend hanging out together before Ed moves to Texas for his new job, we started off early Saturday morning.  We started off with breakfast over at the San Padro cafe in Hudson.  I highly recommend it to anyone and will be back there again.  We basically found it by accident as we were fifteen minutes too early to the nice cigar shop we wanted to check out called the St. Croix Cigar Company which had a large variety of products from my current favorite cigar brand, Perdomo Cigars. We were very impressed, and the guy behind the counter seemed to be an encyclopedia of cigar knowledge.

 

Then we moved on to River Falls to check out both the Kinni Creek Lodge fly shop and the new Lunds Fly shop out of curiosity and to maybe get some insight on what the fish have been hitting on.  We eventually did make it to fishing.  We started out fishing Lost Creek and worked our way up on the Rush river to El Paso.  Ed borrowed one of my bamboo rods to see what fishing one was like and I strung up another for myself for the weekend.  We had some success with sulphur parachutes #18 and comparduns #18, and white parachute BWO's.  Word on the river was that others had good luck using caddis patterns, but I did not have any success using them.  The trout must not have appreciated my artistic interpretation of the caddis flies I tied.

 

Saturday evening:

The reason for our fishing up to El Paso, WI was that our club was celebrating its 60th anniversary and the dinner was being hosted at the El Paso Bar & Grill.  We had a great turnout with many members and their spouses and significant others.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time.  Denny even set up a banquet table with some old club memorabilia, which I thought was a very nice touch.  To save us a lot of driving a few of us spent the night at the local Super8 motel; which sadly has been the nicest motel room I've had in a long, long, long time.  But it's not my fault, it's the fishes fault for not having better places for me to stay at when I go visit them.   



Denny's Table





Amy, Angie, and Jen



 

 

 

 



 

social hour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday morning:

Ed fishing bamboo for brookies

Sunday morning Ed and I had breakfast with Yoda and his saint of a wife, Sandy.  And we were off again fishing the Rush river.  The trout pretty much took to Sulphur parachutes and comparaduns, white post parachute BWO's.  Ed mentioned that it was kind of fitting that we fished at the Stonehammer bridge to catch his last Wisconsin trout before moving to Texas as it was the first place he caught a trout on the Rush when he moved here to Minnesota.  We had rising fish and the fishing was good until the bikini hatch broke out.  We had six girls in two piece bikinis and one guy in shorts trying to float the river on little black inner tubes.  While the scenery was appreciated as they all modeled their swim suits very well, they put the fish down dammit.  The last gal who was a little behind the rest of her group was not so impressed with the decision to float the 40 degree water and said she would rather be fishing with us then floating in the cold water.  I told her that this was the first time in the ten years of fishing this river that had seen anyone try to float it.  Too bad, I didn't have an extra set of waders for her.  Anyway, Ed and I adapted and we sat on the bank of the river and lit up a couple of cigars and waited for the fish to come back.  It didn't take too long and they were back rising. 

 

Sunday afternoon:

After a good morning on the river, we left for lunch at the Silver bridge in Martel.  The club was having one of our monthly fishing outings and grilled brats with sour kraut were on the menu!  I think we had around 15 people or so attend.  After lunch, one of our newer members, Eric, was showing us his new Tenkara rod he bought the day before at Kinni Creek Lodge.  While showing us how to fish it on the section that goes by the park, he hooked five fish.  They all got off before he could land them....but he's still working on figuring that part out.  :) 



And that was our weekend.  Not bad if you ask me.  I wish Good Luck to Ed and his girlfriend Angie on thier new chapter in thier life in Texas, even though I warned them numerous times that Texans live in Texas.

Doe and a fresh fawn

 

 

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