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
