Resort Bluegill

Never underestimate the pond at your resort, especially in Florida. I finally found some time to fish the pond at our resort and found it loaded with bluegill.   I also spied a few bass and carp but failed to hook any. Not a bad way to end a day though

Castles & Fairytales

After surviving a 14hr day in 95 degree heat with 6 kids under the age of seven we can absolutely say that we did the magic kingdom. Is it wrong to look at the greenish waters surrounding the park and wonder if there are monster bass lurking just under the surface?
Tonight its another park and then some fishing at the resort pond, swimming with the kids, and a little beer and barbecuing to finish it off. Not a bad way to spend a day.

Vacation Fun

Nothing more than a quick post as I finish a great day with the fam. Fireworks tonight!   Who doesn't love a big explosion or two?   I'll let you guess where we are.
Might even get some fishing in later this week.

One More Happy Customer

Just a quick post to share how one faithful follower of my art used my recent painting to surprise his dad on fathers day. To all the other fathers out there - hope you had a relaxing day.

Big Bass - Pond Fishing - And I Break My Fly Rod!

In my book there is only one good reason to get up early this time of year.  Of course there are many other reasons I DO get up early such as work and chores around the house but the only one I really get excited about is FISHING!
This past Friday I awoke early to go with my buddy - Marty - to a local private pond on a beautiful working farm.  I have heard him tell of massive fish and plenty of them in this pond so I was fairly excited.  As fish stories go, I was still a bit skeptical but hopeful that the pond lived up to his bragging.  After my first five casts and three fish to show for it I was a true believer.  Either we had hit this pond at precisely the right time or this was truly one of the best ponds I have been to.

  The ecosystem in this large pond was perfect.  Beautiful sunfish of all sizes and species, a wide range of bass sizes all of which look healthy (besides one that looked like a turtle had used him for a chew toy), and enough bait-fish and aquatic bugs to keep the whole food chain rolling.
  Taking one of my favorite graphite rods - the one built by Marty - I strung up my Abel Fly Reel and went to work.  Quickly I learned that I was quite under prepared for the size of fish in this pond.  My  hooks and inch and a half streamers where not tempting enough for to many large fish but the mid sized fish were killing them.

  After hearing a large splash I looked over to see that Marty wasn't exaggerating about this pond one bit.  After a bit of a fight on his custom built spin rig he hauled up on shore one of the biggest 5lb bass I have ever seen.  He had hooked this bad boy just past the gill so it bled a little but after a quick hook extraction - I literately stuck my whole hand down its throat to remove the hook! - we released it back into the pond where it quickly swam away.
  Tossing a 7in Sinko worm he had hooked into a bass most guys would chalk up as a bass of the year for them.  Then he returned to casting and after less than twenty minutes he did it again!  Another hawg on the line (a 5lb'er) and another hero shot to show for it.  Quickly I realized that I was out-gunned on this trip.  I was catching what would normally be respectable size bass but compared to the fish he was hauling in my fish would be considered bait.
  Undaunted, I continued fishing and hooked into a whole lot of fish.  Finally I hooked into a very nice crappie making my day a small slam - Bass- sunfish - and a crappie on the fly rod.
Moving down the shore I tried to cast again and heard a snap.  Thinking that I had hit the fly on the graphite, I tried to cast again and heard an even worse snap.  I had broken my favorite Graphite 7w rod!!  Luckily Marty had come prepared and brought a second spin outfit.  With a little disappointment at having to retire my fly rod and Abel Reel, I picked up the spin rig and went to work.

  By the time I had broken my rod, Marty had hooked into three record bass and I had the bait covered.  Unfortunately the heat of the day was on the rise and the fishing began to slowly die off. I hooked into some great fish and Marty was still catching fish but the sizes where noticeably decreasing.
  One fish I hooked into on the decline was a good sized bass with about a three inch gash taken from its back.  It looked as if something had taken a machete to it so of course I had to take a picture.  Not having any massive toothed creatures in a pond like this, quickly ruling out northern species like a pike, the only option was that a big turtle was trying to have a large meal of bass.  The fish was still very strong but I was not sure he would survive.  A cut like that is hard to recover from.

At about nine thirty we packed it in.  We had both caught many large fish - his being slightly bigger - but it was still one of the best ponds I have ever been to.  On the drive back I lamented on the loss of my rod he had built for me and he came up with a great outlook on the situation.  'Now you have a great excuse to build yourself a new one.'

After dwelling on it a bit - all of two seconds - I knew he was right.  Securing his expertise and promise to help me find the right blanks and get me started, I knew another project was on the way that I had to somehow explain to the wife.  As it is I have about forty other irons in the fire so building a rod might be one project too much but I figured what the heck.  You only go around once, why not live it to the fullest and learn a little on the way.
  For this Friday it was a a great way to end a week.  and with the fishing bug satisfied I can now start another week.  After that its a few family trips across the nation.  With any luck I will be able to do a little more fishing along the way.

(This is the last fish caught on my 7w - nicknamed the Flying Dutchman)  Not a bad way to end a career.  Fair thee well old friend - you have caught many fish in your short 5 year life.  From cutthroats in Idaho to the bass of the south, well done... well done....

Abstract Trout Watercolor

Picking up the paints today I decided to go a completely different direction than normal and do an abstract Trout.  Using the brightest colors available and sharp contrasts I came up with a decorative trout with hints of all three of the main types of trout we all fish for.

First sketching this trout with an acid free artists pen I made the conciseness decision to rough it up a bit. I wanted the finished trout to have a lot of rough edges and an overall unrefined look.  I also tried to capture the designs of a Brook Trout, the idea of a Rainbow, and the spots of the Brown Trout.
After the sketch I went to work dropping in the color and working fast to blend the water and pigments before they dried.

Adding a rough fram of black pigment also helped to give this painting a nice look.  You wont ever find a trout like this on the river but it sure would brighten the decor of your room.

Abstract Trout
-  Size  -  7in X 17in
-  Medium - Watercolor On Paper
-  For Sale

Pedaling Oregon To Carolina!!

  I picked up road biking about two years ago as an alternative to running.  I have never been a big fan of running for fun but riding a bike for 30+ miles, now that is form of exercise I can get into.  I actually feel like I am getting somewhere.  I can see a whole lot more of the countryside and occasionally have the thrill of cruising down a steep hill going over 35mph on a bike.
  So when my wife came home from work a few weeks ago and told me about three brothers that were embarking on a coast to coast summer road biking trip I instantly was enthralled.  And  since I have this platform to share their story I thought it only natural to add this for you all to see and possibly follow.
Calling themselves The Band Of Biking Brothers you can click over to their blogspot site HERE and give them your words of encouragement.  The brothers are the sons of a co-worker of hers and thanks to this internet age they have decided to post their adventure on a blog.  As a guy that is envious of epic adventures like Shackleton in Antarctica or Teddy Roosevelt paddling an unknown river in the Amazon, you can bet that I am going to follow these boys every step of the way.

  Not only is this the kind of journey I love to read about, it also serves for inspiration for me to get on the bike more often.  A year ago I toyed with the idea of doing the tour of Iowa called Ragbrai.  Unable to get my schedule together (or my body in shape) that fizzled but recently I have been looking at a far less ambitious ride.  Biking from the mountains of Carolina down to Charleston SC is a good 2-3day ride well within my ability's and time frame.  Who knows, maybe after my crazy summer is over and the cooler fall weather comes on I will take the inspiration these brothers have given me and launch on my own journey.
Good Luck Boys.

Tenkara Fly

 It has been far to long since I have posted any Tenkara related stuff so with a morning free to sketch I worked up a little Tenkara illustration.  I have been working on a project that has involved a whole lot of Tenkara research and illustrations so it just seemed like the right thing to do a post about.

While doing research and sketching out illustration ideas I inevitably went back though my logs and past artwork to get inspiration.  With that in mind I decided to share a few of those with you along with a few recent Tenkara outings.

A few weeks ago I took the Tenkara rod up to the smokies but completely struck out.  I believe that it could have been the first and only time the fish failed to bite while using the Tenkara rod.  At the very least I have always been able to hook into a young trout or bluegill in a days worth of fishing but alas it was not to be.
When I got home however I took that Tenkara rod back out and with the kids in tow, we were able to redeem it with a bunch of large sunfish.  The kids love its easy use and simplistic nature and for a day on a local pond, you just cant beat handing them a Tenkara rod and watching them hook into fish.

The B.C.S. Fly Fishing Slam?

No, its not the BCS you might be thinking of but instead its the Bass Crappie, Sunfishing slam.  Not spectacular as grand slams go but still a good time.
   The last week or so has kept me fairly busy but that doesn't mean I haven't had time to break away every so often to do a little pond fishing.  Taking my kids to some local ponds we were lucky enough to hit them at the right times and at the right temperatures.  The bass and bluegills have been aggressive and eager to bit and I even managed to sneak in a crappie or two with the fly rod.

Unfortunately the ponds that are close to the house never hold very big fish but that doesn't make hooking into an eager bass any less exciting for me or the kids.  While I was casting my 6w, I strung up the Tenkara rod for the kids.  A few sunfish later and they are just as happy to be tossing in rocks to see the splashes.

Hooking into some eager bass, a few dozen sunfish, and a crappie or two in a few short hours might not be a true grand slam but it does relieve that itch to catch fish.  It also has the added benefit of entertaining the kids for an afternoon while creating memories that will last for a lot longer.

Chasing Balloons At Greenville SC Memorial Day Aloft Balloon Festival

   Memorial Day is a time we all should remember the sacrifices of those that made this country great as well as the ones still fighting to protect those freedoms.  It also is a time for family, friends, and if you are in Greenville SC this weekend - a Time for Balloons!!
  This morning my wife and I woke the kids at the break of dawn and loaded them into the car to go meet the hot air balloons at our annual balloon festival.  One of the largest gatherings of balloons in the United States, the Greenville South Carolina Aloft festival is a chance for ballooners to show off their skills and compete in a weekend long event that everyone can enjoy.

Yes, yes I know this has nothing to do with fishing but the art of piloting these balloons is something that is quite blog worthy.  I'll save you a whole lot of reading and just give you some of the top pics of the morning.  We saw a lot of great balloons and even got to drive miles of backcountry roads chasing them.  The kids had a blast but so did I and if you look closely at the last photo you will see yours truly helping to ground one of the balloons after a very long flight over the South Carolina countryside.

  If you are interested and are in the SC area, the Aloft festival goes on all weekend and they will continue to have balloon launches - weather permitting - in the mornings from 7-9 and in the evenings around 5-8pm.  If you have the drive to wonder around the maze of country roads while looking skyward, head out soon after the launch for some fun chasing them.  If you think texting and driving is dangerous, try driving while looking at balloons and finding roads to get you to their landing fields.  Now that's FUN!

Sketching A Mean Bass

    ITS All About the Bass!!
I got out the paints this morning but just wasn't feeling it so I tossed out the pad of watercolor paper and took out the sketch book.  With the intent of sketching out a tribal bass I ended up with this edgy skeleton bass.  Its quite a departure from my normal stuff but it was fun to work on and it was a great way to spend some down time on a cloud covered morning.
    After sketching it out I took it to the computer and got to work altering it and just having fun with it.  If I was a tattoo kind of guy I think this would be a killer piece of ink.

  The original image as you can see is just a simple line drawing.  Using a pencil I sketched out the basic shapes and design then with my artist pens I began the inking in process.  Before I load it into the computer I make sure all the lines connect and will be easily converted to a vectored line format.  I could do all this on the computer but I am a firm believer in the old school of doing things by hand.  I have found that if I want a computer image to work with for an advertising of company logo project, I need to start with a pen and ink drawing.  Paper scketches are easily altered and I can get a much better feel of how I want the finished piece to look.

  Once it is completed on the paper then I can do whatever I want to in the computer.  Adding slogans and company names is then easily added and altered.   It also is then easily added to shirt designing software.  I designed this bass fishing fleece using one of the numerous shirt design site available on the internet.

Partnering To Protect The Tongass - The Forest Of Salmon

As a general rule all fly fisherman love wild places.  Its a fact that the desire to trek the untouched banks of a forgotten river and cast a fly to a fish that has never seen another human is a dream shared by us all. It is the reason why we search over topo maps and internet postings looking for that hidden blue line few people know about. It is also why when we find that special place we guard it like a grizzly bear protecting a cub. So when I heard the Outdoor Blogger Network had joined forces with TU, TenkaraUSA, Fishpond, and Rio in an effort to bring attention to the Tongass National Forest, I thought it was a worthy cause to support and share with you.

Frankly I had never heard of the Tongass but that is why I jumped into researching it. It only took a brief search to find that it was only the name I failed to recognize. The area known as the Tongass is the wild part of Alaska most of us lower forty eighters think about when we think about wild Alaska. It also is the nations largest National Forest. Covered with untouched stands of old growth trees, wild salmon streams, and lush green mountain sides, these forests are about as wild as we can get in this ever evolving world of highways, expanding suburbs, and cellphone towers. It is just the kind of place you would imagine Salmon populations would thrive. One glance at how much we have changed places like the Smoky Mountains in the east and the Western Rockies and you look at the Tongass as one of the few places where pure nature still can and does exist.

Trout Unlimited has always supported protecting wild places so it was no surprise that their Tongass 77 project sought to protect these wild salmon watersheds.

What might surprise you is that the Tongas77 effort also includes the support of the Alaskan commercial fishing industry and the jobs they produce. Using a common sense approach the folks at Tout Unlimited have put together a valuable collection of data that shows just how important these lands are to preserving the commercial Salmon fishery.
I have never been to the Tongass, or Alaska for that matter, but it is definitely one of those wild places I think about when sitting at my fly tying bench. Everything I have read on the Tongass and its wild rivers tells me that its lush banks and pure waters are the stuff dreams are made of. It would be a long trip from the Southeast but for this angler it would be the trip of a lifetime to cast a fly to a Tongass Salmon.

If you are interested in reading up on the effort to protect this wild place I have attached a few links below. Do your part and share in this effort to protect a wild part of America for future generations. The more people that know about the Tongass then the more people will want to protect it.

TU Article On Tongass

US Parks - Tongass

Tongass Salmon - pdf

This is my submission to the Trout Unlimited 2013 Blogger Tour sponsored byFishpond, Tenkara USA and RIO, and hosted by the Outdoor Blogger Network.

Backpacking Hazel Creek In GSMNP - Fly Fishing For Trout Photo Tour

    I have dreamed of this trip too the remote Hazel Creek ever since I read about it four years ago.  Three times I have planned the trip out over the years only to have the plans fall through at the last moment.  This time nothing was going to stop me from taking the trip.  As I recover from three days lugging a fifty pound pack around the back country and scrambling over river boulders, I took the time this morning to sit down and go through the mass of photos taken along the way.  All I can say is what a beautiful part of the country.... and man do my legs hurt.

  After a morning of church and last minute prep time my buddy and I set out from Greenville SC for the three hour drive to the banks of Fontana Dam and the edge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park where we had arranged for a water taxi to take us to the mouth of Hazel Creek.  We could have hiked it but that would have meant a long fifteen mile slog to our head water campsite.  With the heavy packs we had I am sure that kind of hike would have killed both of us.  As it was we crossed the lake in twenty minutes and still had a two hour hike ahead of us.

  Hitting the trail-head at five pm we buckled down for the trek and set out.  Along the way we passed the long abandoned towns of Proctor, Cable Branch, & Medlin which, if it had not been for the guidebook I consulted before the trip, I would have never known that they existed.  The history of these small settlements dated back to the 1830's but little more than a hundred years the creation of the Fontana Dam cut these communities off from the rest of the world and they were bought by the government.

  Today only a few hidden foundations remain as a testament to their history.  As is true with most every thing left untouched for a period of time, nature has reclaimed the land it owned so long ago.
  We camped at site 84 along the Hazel creek which was the site of the town of Medlin but you would have never known it.  Today it is a beautifully wooded site between the Spring Creek and Hazel Creek confluence without a trace of civilization besides an old river stone wall along the trail.  For me the sound of rushing water was music to sleep by.

  The next day we set out to fish this legendary water.  Stringing up my Fall River Bamboo Fly Rod and Abel Reel I began testing the water above our camp.  In a short while and the loss of a few flies I hooked into this juvenile Rainbow trout.  Unfortunately it was one of the very few trout caught on the trip.  A cold front had passed a day before our arrival and a guide we passed on the trail the day before had revealed to us that the fishing had been horrible.

  In addition to the cool temps and problems with the atmospheric pressures, a weeks worth of constant rain had swollen the streams up to extremely fast moving & deep levels.  I was lucky to even have a fly in the water long enough to hook a single fish.  Most of the time the nymph barely had enough time to sink a few inches much less then the many feet it needed to go to get to the fish.

As we continued on scrambling up hills and over rushing waters the one thing I noticed was that the bugs had taken the opportunity to come out in full force.

  On nearly ever rock and exposed surface was a new bug hatching.  I cant recall any other time I have seen so many different mayflies, stones, and caddis on the water at the same time.  Sulfurs, BWO, and March Browns were all over the water.  I often just sat and watched as a Surfer fluttered above the water and finally settle down to lay the eggs.  I even watch as the yellow bugs swam from the deep to the surface and emerged in short order to a winged insect.  There was so much aquatic life on the river I was at a complete loss why the fish were not there.
   With one last ditch effort out to find the fish I headed back out just before diner with my rod.  What I found was a great looking plunge pool that held some fun Browns.

  Tying on a Little Sister Caddis with green body, I tossed it into the back-flow and instantly hooked into some juvenile browns.  They were the only fish I saw the entire three days actually rise to take a fly but I was happy to have them.  With a green mossy backdrop and my beautiful Abel Reel to set off the bronze spots on his flanks I couldn't help snapping a few photos.  Even if they were small they were an absolute joy to catch.

  These colors are the why so many of us trout fisherman come back time and time again.  The originality of each fishes markings is amazing and when you hold a young trout in your hand and take a close look at the pattern you forget about the size and just see the beauty of it.

  The next morning after a filling breakfast of everything we had in our pack that we didn't want to pack out, we began the unpleasant task of packing up.  Some might think that a breakfast of beans and weenies is disgusting but for a backpacker ever sweet bite is a little bit of heaven.  Couple that with some oatmeal, trail-mix  and a lukewarm cup of badly brewed campfire coffee and you have got a meal to set out on.  Of coarse after a few miles a breakfast like that begins to take effect and you are glad your back-trail is free from other hikers.

  As I was packing up I grabbed my rod holder- a simple pvc pipe covered with stickers I have acquired over the years - and was surprised to see this mayfly had used my Abel it to shed his skin.  I was even more surprised that not far from his old skin the little yellow guy was still there just waiting for his wings to dry off so he could take flight

  I will say this for the little guy, he had taste.  If I was a mayfly I couldn't think of a better place to shed my skin.

  With a final photo of my buddy and I, we packed the rest of our gear, reluctantly shouldered the heavy packs and set out for our pickup point down stream.  Taking our time on the hike out, we would occasionally stop along the stream, shed the packs and eagerly go stream-side to fish an inviting pool but we never had another bite.
  In the end we didn't hook into the number or size fish we had hoped for but all around it was a worthy trip I would do again anytime.  Hopefully someday I will make it back and until then I will have the memories to remind me how wonderful a place the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is.