Wednesday, October 21, 2009

there is shit in the river!

damn. i tried really, super hard to fish this weekend. really. and i "fished" but didn't really feel very fishy about it. see, first there was saturday, after finally getting over my guilt about leaving my wife and baby to go fishing (this subject will someday have its very own post) for a half day, i set out for a river at about 1 in the afternoon. a 40 minute drive, 10 minute stop for a license and dark at around 7 means 5 hours fishing MAX, plus steelie is along which cuts at least another 30-60 minutes out for dog management. i hightail, get there and see lotsa no parking signs at planned stop #1, stop #2 has plenty of access but i see the river, or lack of it, and realize my odds are low...at least i brought the single-hander. all that aside, i still got to fish and caught a decent trout, but that wasn't the point. it felt like a bust, much like getting amped up for a porterhouse and getting a cookie cutter feed lot grease burger instead...edible, but barely.

sunday. ahhh yes, good ole sunday. no more worries about the whole guilt thing cause kari and elsa were coming with. we got rolling at about 11:30, which, all things considered was pretty damned solid. when we made it to the river we had to spend a little time getting elsa prepped, rods strung and the dog under control, but it went well. the water was a little dirty but very fishable. kari sat down on a nice log seat to feed elsa and i went upstream to fish a greasy little tailout fulla boulders and the like. i got about ten casts in and kari gave a holler and a wave. so i reel up, head down and see the milk that is supposed to be ingested, was outgested, all over elsa's clothes and kari's waders. oh well, not a big deal, we'll go back to the car, re-group and head upstream to the original destination a little further from traffic. about half-way there i look at the river and it is a fucking mud slide, like literally, this shit was one part per million away from being mud.

we hit the highway for plan b, get ten minutes down the road and i lose all electrical power in the car, all the dash gauges are out, radio is out, heater fan is out, etc. this isn't a great thing, i thought, battery? alternator? hmmm? and then the power was back on, then off again, then on again and off and on. the whole time the car ran great, but with a 2 month old in the rig it was probably best to try to make it home. and we did, but barely. the car finally lost power at our exit, we made it up the ramp doing about 30, and i thought we were gonna have to hit the ditch, but when i pushed the clutch in and sat at the stoplight for 30 seconds i got all my power back, everything came back on. wtf? ever since, the problem has not come back, but my wipers are still slow and some other weird shit is going on so the beast is going to the shop tomorrow. hopefully, next time we try to go fishing, we will be able to fish. that would be great. wish me luck fools, i need it!

Friday, October 9, 2009

three weeks ago

forgot to post this...it was good, one night of camping, a day and a half of fishing, and three less hatchery pukes to dilute the wild genes. all removed via long rod, floating line and small fly.