Christmas

Christmas was good to me this year. I was able to have a nice quiet gift exchange with my wife on the eve of Christmas eve. She liked her presents very much, as did I. I got a new Ross Reel 1.5 for my 3wt rod that I got earlier this year on my birthday. She also got me an assortment of colored biots and misc. Feathers to tie flies with. I think she likes keeping me busy in my tying room ;). On the day of Christmas eve we spent at my parents house watching the 40 degree + weather turn the newly iced over lake into a slushy mess. This year's Christmas was especially nice due having my brother safely home and out of the military. Last year he was home too, but he was doing a count down of days until he left for Iraq. This year, not the same. Much more relaxed and fun, and we even had many gifts for his girlfriend who seems to be just a little sweetheart with just enough attitude to keep my brother in line :). The best gift of the night was a large gift certificate to Cabela's. can you say "Danger Will Robinson Danger!" Christmas Day My wife and I drove over to see her parents in South-Central Wisconsin. Where we ate Mae's house, shared gifts, ate some more at grandma's home, shared gifts, went to sleep, had breakfast at Jen's parents house and ROLLED out the door to head home. It was nice seeing Jen's relatives, they always seem so happy when they get together, regardless of the event/holiday. We also chatted some with Jen's younger sister who has recently become engaged and moved into a "fixer-upper" in SW Wisconsin. She seems pretty excited with home improvement project her and her fiance have taken on. WE wish them the Best!

TTFN,

-Critter

Nothing to report

Nothing to say really, I jut thought I'd blog something. So...I tied up two dozen EHC (half black and half natural) this past week. I also picked up another fly tying book with a bunch of neat UK patterns. I like the UK style of tying, not sure why. Enter the Holiday season, last minute travel details as well as Christmas purchases have been made. Long hours have been put in between my current job and my "part-time job." Thankfully I will be closing that chapter and replacing it with a different job that is truly part-time and closer to home. Much caffeine to help me through the long days. Many suppers out on the town and holiday treats have been consumed - tis the season!

-Critter

Eastern Fly Fishing magazine

If you get the chance you should pick up the Winter 2006 edition of the Eastern Fly Fishing magazine, my buddy, John Mowery, is published in it for the second time in a row. He has two nice articles about our local WI/MN waters. Which, by the way, John is also our VP of our local Trout Unlimited chapter known as TCTU of which I have put a few volunteer hours into myself as a former member of the Board and former Chair of the Habitat Committee.

later,

-Critter

Last nights club meeting

Last night I was going to go the fly tiers meeting for just an hour. Oops, three and a half hours later I left. There were a couple of visitors that had stopped in from Fairbault, MN. The older of the two visitors (70's I am guessing) was very interesting to talk to. He fished Oregon frequently as that is where one of his daughters lives and had a unique tying style. First he had a book on tying flies with glass beads, and his flies were neat variations of common patterns. The beads were definitely an interesting interpretation of the real deals. Second he was tying flies down to a size 28, and he was disappointed that he couldn't go down to a 32. Now I don't know about you, but at age 30, It's a good day to tie a size 24 fly. I was very impressed, usually flies at the size 28 are more impressionistic and use thread dubbing and nothing else. This talented tier had traditional tails and hackle and the whole shebang! So I guess that eliminates any excuses from anyone who says "that's just too small." By the way, he was catching some respectable trout with those flies according to a couple of stories/memories he shared with me. I chatted most all the members that showed up last night (about twenty or so) and hence the reason for leaving much later than anticipated. I so enjoy the meetings and I always leave in great mood, no matter what mood I show up with.

Tomorrow morning we are headed South to IA to have our family Christmas and I am debating whether or not to bring some stuff down with me to tie flies as there is always much sitting and chatting in various places of the house. I could just take one over, set up with a glass of wine and chat away while letting the creative juices flow from the finger tips. That and there is only so many days that I can work on refilling my fly box before January 1st comes and our winter season open on select streams in Minnesota!

TTFN,

-Critter

Zebra's

Last night as the chill set in, I sat down to the tying bench. Of the vice came sixteen Zebra midges size 18. Three went into a fly box that I will be giving my cousin (who is just getting started in fly fishing), and the rest went into my midge box. Of those there are three that I had tied a variation of. I added a green flashabou shellback. While I like patterns that have a multi-colors, this little experimental pattern may be too flashy. At least it seemed flashy under the vice light with the silver ribbing, the flashabou, and the silver beadhead all reflecting the light back at me. After that I tied two and a half wet flies as I kind of got distracted with that hour long fashion show by Victoria's Secret. I told my wife that I thought is was commercial and I had to pay attention to it for her sake. ;) wink wink. I wonder how effective a zebra midge tied with a CDC wing hand picked from one of those Vickies outfits would be?

Curiously yours,

-Critter

Casting indoors

I got up at 5:30am (yea, I got to sleep in!) and was out the door by 6am to the casting dome. Arrived on time at a nice 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Only myself and one other club member showed up. So we set out some hoops and casted for a couple of hours. The rod I chose to bring this morning was a GL3 6wt because it has my favorite action. My buddy let me cast his rods, he brought two GLX in two different weights, a 4 and a 6. I liked them very much, I thought the GLX would be a stiffer action then the GL3 since it proclaims a high line speed, but it felt like a much softer/slower action. I am a fan of the slow rod feel, and they shot out line as easy, if not easier then my GL3. If I learned nothing else about this morning, the experience of now knowing the difference in those two products was worth the trip. Afterwards we hit the local coffee shop and surfed the net a little before heading home to unfreeze my wife's car doors so that she could go to the hair salon and have her 'girl' time.

Christmas shopping...

Christmas shopping sucks! The crying kids, the scolding parents, the merchandise strung all over the floor and shelves, the general madness of "mission" to find the "special" gift. We rewarded ourselves with a trip to Chipolte for burgers and Drinks.

I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up the mail today. In the latest edition of Fly Fisherman magazine, they have an article on the Blue River in Colorado. So what you ask, well it happened to be where I caught my first Cutbow this summer.

Tomorrow morning if things work out, I will be hooking up with some friends from the fly tying club and we will practice casting at a local dome with pointers from Bob Nasby. I am looking forward to that! A bonus is that it will be especially savored since our weather forecast says that the high will be in the single digits. [My wife says hi to everyone by the way]

I'll let you know how tomorrows casting goes.

-Critter

Casting

Last night at the club meeting there were two gentlemen from the American Casting Association, one of them was Bob Nasby who competes nationally. They were there to crush some myths about fly casting, and I do mean Crush. He also showed us a couple of Steve Rajeafs rods that he uses-one of them was the one that made some world record cast over 300 feet. I learned a lot of stuff, its too bad we have 2" of snow, I am not sure how much I will remember. The American Casting Association has a website if you are interested in improving your cast. It is very competition based, but hey, if you are looking to increase your cast ten or twenty feet, then this might be for you. Both the speakers (Bob and Vic) were very entertaining and you could tell they were very good at what they do. I have seen Bob cast before at a local fishing expo in minneapolis and all I could do was smile. If you ever get the chance, you need to go and watch any of these guys cast! They will kill most if not all of your casting "rules" and you will be better for it.

-Critter

Quotes

I was going through some quotes this morning and found two that made me chuckle and thought I would share them with you.

"Zen and the art of ice fishing is an oxymoron."
--author unknown

"If people don't occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you're doing something wrong."
--John Gierach

Here is another that I liked;
"Remeber, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream."
--W.C. Fields