Colorado

Melissa and I just got back from Colorado last week and guess what? We have airline tickets and a cabin booked for late September to head back. Sad, I know but hey we both love it there so life is good. More on this later. The trip was amazing; we had just a wonderful time. We spend 7 nights at the lodge at Cordillera which we love! This time was no exception. While we were there Melissa took the Orvis 2 day fly fishing class taught by my buddy Jeff and rocked it out. She is really becoming an excellent fly fisherman. She is getting her casting stroke down and really getting into the sport. After the class Melissa and I spend the rest of the time fishing and relaxing. We fished the Frying Pan River in the Basalt area twice, the Yampa at Stagecoach once, the Eagle and few times and at the tail end of our trip spent 3 days on the Blue River while we were in Silverthorne, our other favorite spot. Melissa caught fish on every river we fished. I was very proud of her. And I think the biggest fish of the trip goes to her as well. She got a VERY nice Rainbow out of the Yampa River which I think was bigger than the very nice Rainbow that I got out of the Blue River. She also got a fish on the Eagle where I did not. All in all the fishing was amazing, it was a little slow at times but when you consider the surroundings and the beauty of the rivers it is just an awesome place to fish. My favorite spot was the Frying Pan River. I love that water, while it is a busy place and there are anglers all over it has the spiritual sense about it. It is Gold Medal water so you just very know what you are going to get out of there, a 6” trout or a 20+ pound trout. One thing is for sure there are fish everywhere and they are fun to watch. I enjoy watching the fish swim around almost as much as I enjoy catching them. So I could stand in the river all dang day and just watch the fish around me. Each time on the Pan we staked out a nice area and fished a nice run and then had a nice picnic lunch, it was an awesome way to spend the days fishing. I was able to catch all of my fish this trip on dry flies, so that made it extra special to me. I also was able to get my Tenkara rod out and do some Tenkara style fishing out there as well. I fish my Tenkara on the Blue River on the next to the last day when I was letting my boots and waders dry. I was able to catch 5 small Rainbows using my Tenkara rod. It was really exciting for me. I enjoy Tenkara fishing very much and the more I do it the more I like it. Here in Minnesota I am doing more and more Tenkara fishing. It is just a super fun way to fish. Anyway back to our Colorado recap. Besides fishing we relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company, we dreamed about winning the lottery and relocating to Colorado. We do this every time we are there and it is really a fun way to pass the time. Dreaming of a beautiful home in the mountains. We also went to a wedding up at A-Basin that turned out to be one of the best weddings I had ever been to. This was a friend of Melissa’s that was married and besides taking the ski lift up to the ceremony site, everything was really top notch. The food was amazing as was the view and the people that we hung out with. It was a super fun night. The trip was 11 days long which was awesome; it was the right amount of time to completely forget about work and to truly wrap ourselves in the mountains of Colorado. During our fishing trip to the Frying Pan we discovered some little cabins that are across the street from the Pan, I check into them, they are awesome, we found cheap airfare and are headed back for a semi –long weekend at the end of September. I am super excited to go.

It is now an Obsession.

So I have become a more and more addicted to flyfishing, I always loved it but now it is becoming more and more of an obsession. While I am also doing a lot of fishing I have also started tying more and more flies. I love it, while I am not very good at it, I have tied a few flies that have actually caught some fish, so I am either doing something sort of right or I am catching the really dumb fish. Most likely the later. I also joined the St Paul Fly Tiers Club this April and have been going to the Thursday night meetings regularly. It is a great bunch of guys. I have progressed a lot in my tying by watching the other members of the club and also just by tying a little more than I had before. Either way it has been great! The club meets Thursday nights at a bar in St Paul, we meet in an upstairs meeting room packed with tables, everyone just sits around, ties flies and chats, and it is great! The club also has regular fishing outings to different locations around the area. I went to my first outing this past weekend. It was on the Rush River in Wisconsin which I have a serious love/hate relationship with. I don’t know the river very well and it seems that every time I go there I don’t catching anything, most likely because I am in the wrong spot. Oh well, maybe I will figure it out soon. Anyway the outing was fun, I went fishing by myself for a while on Sunday morning, I didn’t know where the other club members were. No biggie, I fished for about 2 hours and then meet everyone at a park by the Rush River for a nice cook out. It was a great time, the food and the company were great. Like I said it is a great group of guys. After lunch I gave my new Tenkara Ayu rod a go, it is a Japanese style of fly fishing that incorporates a very long rod, line, tippet, fly and no reel. I managed to hook a few fish, but I lost them all before I could land them. It is tricky landing a fighting fish with no reel, but it will come with a bit of practice. Side note, I did finally land a fish Tuesday night on my Tenkara rod! So I think I have it figured out now. Yay! Anyway long story short, I am so glad I joined the club! I hope to make some friends that might want to go fishing with me at times beyond the club outings. Melissa and I were out in Silverthorne Colorado over Memorial Day weekend. We had a blast. The weather was perfect, even the snow flurries on Sunday were nice to see. Melissa and I had a couple of great days fishing, we meet up with my buddy Jeff Lyon whom works for Orvis and he took us out to a couple of spots on the Eagle River west of Avon Colorado and a couple other spots. I caught a very nice brown trout on a pheasant tail nymph on the Eagle; it was great because it was my first fish from the Eagle. I had, had a number of them hooked before but they were always crafty and able to get off before I could land them. We also had a nice but very windy day up on the Yampa River near Steamboat Springs. The fishing up there was really fun; Melissa caught her first big fish up there. She landed a very nice Rainbow. I think she enjoyed herself fishing. Besides fishing we also enjoyed our time in the mountains. We love it out there and can’t wait to get back in mid-July.

Just one more cast...

Last night was a very fun night out on the river. I headed over to the Kinnikinnic to a semi-secret spot that a buddy of mine gave me a map to and told me to meet him there. I was looking forward to getting out because I guessed the dry fly action would be good and there would be fish to be caught on the dry. Once I arrived at the spot parked my car, geared up and made the walk into the spot I found my buddy and surveyed the area. “Cool Spot!” I said to my friend, he agreed. He is a new fly fisherman so it has been fun to hang out together, I have been able to teach him a few things along the way and I think they have been helpful so that is fun for me. Anyway, I rigged my rod and took a moment to look at the river and see what the river was telling me to use. There was a lot of insect activity in the air and it appeared that the Caddis flies were finally hatching in some numbers. There were not a lot of rises but enough that I went straight for my dry box. I tied on a size 18 orange stimulator and made my first cast, perfect spot right at the edge of the seam, had a very nice drift but no takes. I made about 8 more casts varying my locations and finally my first take. After a short fight I had my first fish in the net, a small but feisty brown trout. I unhooked him said goodbye and put him back and decided to change flies. This time I picked a size 18 Parachute Adams. I have great luck with that fly on the Kinni and I figured tonight would be no different. Once again I made some casts and was getting a few more swipes, but no good takes. I moved around a bit on the run and tried different areas and different angles for casting. Had a nice drift going when splash, a nice take. This next fish was a little bigger and we had a nice struggle to the net. Once again another nice Kinni Brown was in the net. We said our hello’s although I am guess he was not really happy with me, but as I do with all of the fish I catch, I said hello, thank him for the fight and told him to get back out there and get bigger. They seem to like that last part. He swam away, I am sure freaked out by getting the crap beat out of him by what he thought was dinner, but I am sure he went right back to eating… I walked downstream a ways and worked the riffles with a small Caddis fly, the Caddis were indeed hatching and there were a lot of them fluttering about. The trout were rising more and more but they were indeed a bit picky, there were looking for a certain size for sure. But half the fun of fly fishing to me is figuring that part out. I made a number of casts with my newly tied on caddis fly but had no takes at all. So I deciding to throw on a wet fly and do some swinging. I was hoping to entice those trout feeding on the emerging insects. I had a few hits but either I missed the hook sets or they didn’t take the fly very well. I will go with the later idea, but it was a fun effort. I don’t do a lot of wet fly swinging so it was interesting to try. I am for sure going to pick up some more wet flies and put that in my back pocket as something to try once and awhile. While I was casting my wet fly I noticed the hatching caddis were getting bigger and there were a lot more of them. So it was time to return to a dry fly. I tied on a tan elk hair caddis and started casting. First cast, huge splash, sadly no fish. But I knew that there would be more. Second cast, my fly was right next to a real fly, guess which one the fish took? Right! He took the real one. It was pretty sweet to see though. I had some perfect drifts going and action all around but nothing hooked. I made a cast and had a good swipe at my fly, and at the same time my buddy said that he was going to call it a night and I said ok, that I would as well because I was not sure I could find my way out in the dusk. So I said, "one more cast", I threw my fly back in the same area as the strike I just had and sure enough, strike and fish on. How often does that happen? One more cast, catch a fish, it was sweet. After a nice little fight I had in the net a very feisty little Brook trout. It was very exciting to me, I hadn’t caught a Brook trout before so it was neat to finally have one in the net. He was pretty, nice coloring, and just a shade under 10” long. We exchanged hellos, took a photo or 2 together and said our goodbyes. He swam happily away and I walked away from the river through small clouds of caddis with a big smile on my face. I can’t wait to get back to that spot.

Life goes fast!

For the life of me I don’t know where the time goes. I try to blog and get in the mind set of blogging a couple times a week and then it always happens I stop. I really enjoy blogging but things get in the way. Anyway… A lot is going on. Melissa and I went on a cruise this February, it was Melissa’s first cruise and let me just say she loved it! In fact she loved it so much that we have 2 more booked for 2013. On our past cruise we did the standard western Caribbean run, which started in Miami, went to the Bahamas’, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and Cozumel Mexico. The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful time. Melissa is so damn fun to travel with; we really relaxed on the cruise which was so nice. We lounged around when on the ship, ate some great food and just enjoyed our time in the sun. We did some great snorkeling in Grand Cayman. We had a nice beach day in both Cozumel and the Bahamas’. We even tried stand up paddle boarding in Cozumel. We both were able to do it pretty well; it was a lot of fun. I have been on a number of cruises, but hadn’t been for quite a while; it was nice to go again and to remember just how much fun they really are. We are headed back to the Caribbean next March and then to Alaska in July of 2013. I can’t wait! I have always wanted to do an Alaskan cruise so that is going to be an awesome trip. We have balcony rooms for both trips, which will be interesting. I have never had a balcony room on a ship so I am excited to give it a try.

I was a little bummed that we didn’t get back skiing in Montana this year and it turned out that the snow gods would have given us fresh snow to play in while we were there but I will say it was a nice change of pace to go on that cruise. I had forgotten how beautiful the Caribbean Sea is. It is a blue like you have never seen before.

We have a lot of travel plans going right now. And all of them I am excited for. We are headed to Colorado over Memorial Day weekend. I think we are going to be staying in the Silverthorne area but I am not 100% sure yet. Either way we are going to get some fly fishing in and relax in the mountains. I am looking forward to get out there. Then our big summer trip is back to Colorado. We are headed back to Cordillera; Melissa is taking the Orvis fly fishing class out there. I am so excited for her to take the class; I think she will really enjoy it. I am glad she is getting an interest in fly fishing; it will give us something else that we can do together. I took her out for her first fishing trip last week or to the Kinni in River Falls Wisconsin, she did great, she caught her first trout on a fly. It was exciting. Plus I think it really got her into the idea of learning more about fly fishing. I think she will do great in the class and she will become an excellent fly fisher.

With the lack of a winter that we had here in Minnesota which I will add was very odd, most of the lakes are ice free and the temperature has already been above 80 a couple times and it is only March, I have been out fishing quite a few times already and the fishing has been good. I have done really well nymph fishing and the best part of it is, almost all of the fish I have caught so far are on flies I have tied myself. Which makes it even sweeter; I apparently tie a good enough zebra midge to fool even the smartest trout.

I am looking forward to working on my skills as an angler and becoming a better fisherman this year. The couple of cruises that we have planned for next year have some interesting possibilities for fishing built into them. Being in Belize is one, some of the best bonefishing in the world is done there and I found a place that will do a day trip out to the flats for a day of fishing. And also there is a flyfishing trip on the Alaskan cruise that I am very interested in.

These are things that are always going through my head. What to do next, why and how…

Done

Well I am officially a college graduate. While it is only a two year degree it is a degree none the less and I am proud of myself for finishing. It took me a long time, sadly there were a lot things that came up a long the way that caused me to put classes on hold for a year at a time thus making it seem to take forever. But after a long haul I am done. I finished with an Associate of Science and a 3.63 GPA. I worked very hard and I am glad I stuck with it. Now on to the next adventure.

Musings

My life has been crazy the last few weeks. I am finally coming toward the end of my college career, well at least for now. What a long a strange road it has been. It has taken a long time but the experience has been very rewarding and eye opening. I never thought I would love learning again as much as I have the past few years. Even though this process is going to leave me with only a two year degree I am very happy with the fact that I have stuck it out and stayed with it through some very trying times in my life. My next decision will be if I will continue on and work toward my 4 year. I am unsure what will do, but for now I am going to enjoy the feeling of accomplishing a goal that I set for myself strictly for self-improvement and self-knowledge. I am happy with that.

I have been doing some serious record shopping lately, I have bought a few things here and there, but last week I had a great score. I found a mint condition copy of The Wall. It was like the thing was never played. It was pretty sweet. I have a feeling I am going to ware that pile out. I love The Wall; it is my favorite Floyd album. I have almost managed to score a couple more friends’ collections. Good stuff. It is funny because people mostly just want to get rid of their records. I will take them. If you have any old records and are looking to get rid of them I will take them. I got my first Beatles record the other day, I was never a huge Beatles fan, but I am glad to have their greatest hits album, good stuff on there.

I wish it would snow. Right now there is nothing and it doesn’t really even seem like winter outside. Sure it is chilly but there are really no signs at all of winter and that to me is a bummer. I am looking forward to skiing again this year and maybe spending a bit more time trying to learn how to snowboard. If we head west this year I would like to try snowboarding out there. I think it would be a blast.

I am looking forward to Christmas. I love Christmas, I can’t wait to get our tree and decorate it. I really want to bake and decorate cookies. I am hoping that Santa Claus swings by the house this year. I like Santa.

The next big thing will be what we decide for out winter trip. We are kicking around some ideas. I am not sure what we are going to do, but I am guessing it will be awesome.

New Phone

So I got my new phone, I think so far it is ok. I ended up getting the new iPhone 4s. I like it so far, it is really not that much different than my Android phone. I do like some things on the droid much better, but the iPhone is going to be fine. I do really like the Siri function a lot. It is pretty dang cool. I have used it a little bit and so far so good, I had heard people were having some trouble with it but so far so good. More later.