Savor with gratitude............................

Well fall is here. It is a special time of year regardless of what species you are pursuing. Steelhead,salmon,muskie, or bass it is trophy time.

You see my friends and I had a friend named Tim Wittek. He was a muskie fisherman. Weedball as we called him was tough as nails. His endurance on the water was legendary and he caught some special fish in his day. I pretty much thought old Weedball was invincible. Well earlier this decade one of the toughest men I know was stricken by pancreatic cancer. He fought it like a son of bitch. He appeared to even be getting better for a while. Well the last year of his life he waited to the last day of the muskie season to release himself from the affliction of his disease and go to another world. I believe it was November 30th 2004. I could be wrong about the year it both feels a hundred years ago and like yesterday all at once.

Tim comes to me every once in awhile. Always the same way, I'm driving down the road in the dark and I look over to the passenger seat for brief minute and he is sitting there in a Carhartt. He looks at me with a little attitude and says"What the hell are you looking at?" then he disappears as sure as he showed up. This happens every few years and it's always out of the blue.

Well it happened tonight on the way home from dinner.

Tim left a wonderful wife and two beautiful children behind and he was only in his thirties.

I still don't understand how the toughest of the tough gets taken down.

Well here is the gist of my thoughts tonight.

In honor of my old friend Tim, I want us to savor with gratitude our time on the water this fall.

Do you know what I mean when I say savor??????

I want you to appreciate the the smell of the wet leaves falling from the trees.

The emerald green water lightly shading the presence of beautiful silver steelhead.

The sound of a light rain hitting the water while your  balls deep in your favorite run.

I want you to have gratitude for the time you have been allowed to have on the water and the special friends you share it with.

The laughter and smiles while you give each other a couple digs while walking to your next fishing hole.

The beaming smiles on each others faces when we are victorious in our catches.

The childlike state that our pursuit of the outdoors brings to us over and over again.

On the water we are powerful,fulfilled and whole in spirit and soul.

We never know when fate is going to punch our dance card like it did my old friend Tim.

Savor with gratitude..........................

sign it now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have not had the opportunity to make it to B.C. yet, but I think we can all agree that the sacred headwaters of the Skeena are one the most environmentally sensitive areas on the planet as the home to enormous runs of life sustaining salmon and steelhead.

Please take the time to sign this and email a letter to Shell in regard to their polluting and potential destruction of this special place on earth.


http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/281/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5503




also check out this:


http://flygal.ca/blog

Choking the chub.................

This morning I went for a little walk. I knew the conditions would be less than stellar but a little fresh air and exercise can't hurt anyone.  The water had dropped and was still off and murky.There was a humidity in the air that laid a layer of sweat on ones brow. I ran into some nice deer and a little bit of serenity. The best I could scrape up today was a couple of chubs and that was it.

We are all waiting for the steelhead slot machine to spin up with the  magic jackpot of timing and conditions. You know what I mean:

The optimum tributary and lake temperatures
The optimum air temperature
The emerald green water  flowing at the perfect cubic feet per second after a rain that naturally brought in fresh dime bright steelhead eager to take your offerings.

Oh yes and timing all of this on a day you have off and found water away from the crowds.

Now on to other things...................

You no doubt have heard me extoll the virtues of our new tackle shop in town, Ja-Wens.
It is just great to have a shop with friendly people that speak the steelhead language.

I think I have blown about 100 bucks in the place over the last month.

Well they did it again this weekend for me.

Friday after work I stopped in the shop after noticing the ceramic insert of the tip top guide of the Loomis 1562 had popped out. Two years ago this happened and Bill Shearer was able to do some emergency surgery for me before a mornings outing and well it happened again.
I talked to Dan and Dave and inquired if they new a rod builder that could replace the guide. Luckily their friend and rod builder Frank Zak was in the shop hanging out with them. He said he would take care of it and have it back to me in 24 hrs. I  couldn't have been more happy and grateful for his efforts and turn around. Dave also showed me some fine work that Frank did for him on a custom rod.

Once again if your in the area and fishing one of the New York tribs off of lake Erie stop in and say hello to the guys at Ja-Wens. They are friendly,knowledgeable, and accommodating. They know steelhead and are putting together a wide range of toys from Kingpin to Raven and from Drennan to KJV.

     Ja-Wens Tackle

Address	7366 Erie Rd Derby, NY 14047
Email	jawens@roadrunner.com

Until later....................

muddled up..................

Not much going on this morning. We received some rain last night but it was a warm rain so not so good. I brought the head lamp down for a quick check before the morning light and it was chocolate milk. I decided to stop at 5 tribs with the same brown cow color to the water so I decided to kill an hour fishing in the lake itself by the mouth of a flow with no results.

The highlight of the morning was a DEC creel study by a pretty Blondie. Yes mam no fish but ask me what ever you'd like.

Until later....................

Sweating it out..............

After canceling  a Saturday outing with Bill and Frank due to a bout with a 24 hr bubonic plague, I summoned up a little strength this morning in hopes of burning the virus out of my body. I spent just a few hours on the water  and was graced with a couple of fish. The walk  and sunshine did me some good this morning but a little more rest is in order.

What did I learn over my last few outings?

Well I tried Sufix Elite instead of the Siege and I was not impressed. While it has low memory it seems to stretchy to me.  I like to play in submerged timber which means your going to lose gear. With the Siege it seems the leader would break at the hook when you snagged up but with the Elite it has been breaking above the float. That's 5 floats in the last two outings including the double secret hand crafted Buda float. So as we speak I am going to spool on some fresh Siege even if it is all in me head.

That's all folks and here are a few links that may or may not interest you.

https://www.nysdot.gov/regional-offices/region5/projects/r5-rt5-rt20-bridge

and

https://www.nysdot.gov/portal/pls/portal/MEXIS_APP.WEPIDYNPAGEMULTI.show?p_arg_names=p_pin&p_arg_values=513438#a_loc

Way up a creek without a paddle

Well the steelhead jones was calling me this morning. The weather dude called for AM showers followed by afternoon thunder and rain. The weather was cloudy with a slight sprinkle when I hit the water.
I love fishing in a  rain shower and I love it even more when I get to a few spots on the flow with no evidence of other human beings.

I fished some fast water and I heard what I thought was thunder but I couldn't tell if it was the water playing tricks on me or the construction up the road. So I continued to hike up stream in search of good water. About a mile upstream from where I started I could hear the distinct sound of thunder rumbling in the distance. The sky darkened and  the rumble sounded as if it was coming my way.

Well I went into risk management mode and started calculating my odds.

There are three methods of dealing with risk.

1. mitigate
2. avoid
3 transfer

Well I sure as hell decided to avoid that risk before Thor, the son of Odin, transfered 100 million volts of labotomizing go juice through my 13 foot IMX. I double timed it back down stream somewhere between a fast walk and a slow sprint over gravel,rock, and boulder. In addition to two wades across the flow.

I got back to my truck huffing, and puffing with lungs burning. I was a puddle of wader soup and shower drenched from my hump back to safety.

By the time I got out of the waders and slugged down a bottle of water the thunder claps dissipated. I contemplated throwing the gear back on doing it all over again but I thought better of it.

I stopped at the Timmy Ho's for breakfast and made my way down to Ja-Wens Tackle to shoot the shit with Dan and  blow $40.00 bucks of stuff I don't need.

Better safe than sorry.

Until later.....................

I took her for a spin.................

This morning I decided to take the Imperial for spin. It gave me the opportunity to do a little preseason scouting for the fall and see how the new reel spins in lower flows. The reel was great and I have no complaints whatsoever. I can't wait to get it out in prime time and put her to the test.

It was  a nice morning walk down the the banks and I even ran into a familiar face and his trusty dog. We shot the shit for a few minutes trading beads,jigs, and yarn. We shared our hopes for the coming season and lamented conditions of the past.

My time of year is almost here......

Pre-Dawn Black Ops Imperial Mission

In the darkness of a wet damp September morning  a clandestine meeting took place between two foreign agents of the crown and an American operative. The meeting was brief and efficient. The focus of the meeting was the exchange of state of the art British steelhead technology developed somewhere deep behind the highly guarded gates of the Nuffield Industrial Estate rumored to be the home of the Kingpin skunkworks. The technology and workmanship from the skunkworks is world renowned for its high tolerances and silky smooth orbit.


OPERATION IMPERIAL: COMPLETED

Crossing the bridge into September..........

and getting ready..................