That dream is about to come true, and I’m taking you with me.

My boss is allowing me to take a leave of absence.  My amazing wife is supporting this adventure, and will be meeting up with me at various, pre-planned times/locations  to replenish my supplies and keep me updated on whats going on in the real world.  Along the way I’ll be using a solar charger to power my smart phone, which I’ll be using to update anyone reading this site on what I’ve been up to.  Typing a journal out on a phone keyboard would normally suck, but fortunately, I can just talk into the phone and it will do all the typing for me.  I’m not sure how often I’ll be checking in, but am guessing that I’ll have plenty of free time to write near the fire.

As far as food goes, I’ll be living off the land as much as possible, but will keep some just-add-water stuff on hand just in case.  I’m guessing I’m gonna lose a few pounds.

When does the journey end?   I really don’t know.  But I’m guessing till around September when the blackberries are done and the frosty nights are too much for me to handle.

So there it is.  Hopefully I don’t get eaten by bears, or run into any Sasquatches.  The mosquitoes will be the toughest part.

If anyone needs to contact me, you can do so via a facebook message or email.  I won’t be wasting valuable battery life surfing the web on my phone, but my wife will keeping an eye on both for me while I’m gone and will relay any important messages.

I guess I’ll see you in the woods!  My journey begins tomorrow at noon.

This is gonna be so awesome.

Today’s pic is of my son seconds after his first baptism.  We were fishing a backcountry Adirondack brookie stream in mid-late summer.  I had killed it there on a solo trip a couple months earlier and wanted more than anything to see my son experience the same level of success.

You can’t tell, but he is bawling in the picture.  The victim of a fall that eventually landed him a new pair of Korkers Redside wading boots.

Rocks hurt.

See it full size here.

In case you missed it, this site has been completely revamped.  The homepage is now a slideshow of some of my favorite photographs I’ve taken over the past few years.  Every day, or so, I’ll add a new pic, and use this blog to let you know.  I’ll also be sharing the story behind it, and why its one of my favorites.  I’ve got a lot of old stock to pull from, but I’ll also be sharing new stuff, too.  To take the Gierachian perspective, I’ve been crazy busy over the past few months, and this is a way for me to decompress and recharge my batteries, even though I don’t have time to do so.

The first pic to be, ahem, “officially” introduced is shown above.  Most people who have seen this pic usually comment on the young woman waiting for her drink to be served.  As you may have guessed, they’re mostly male. But there is something else about this pic that makes it one of my all time favorites.

It was taken at Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom, in Denver, CO, August 2010.  (full size here) It was half past midnight, and everyone in the house had just finished watching the Fifth Annual Drake Fly Fishing Video Awards.  There was free beer, it was hot as hell that day, and I was very, very thirsty.   Next thing you know, I’m completely shit-faced, and best of all, I was on assignment for MidCurrent, covering the video awards while in town for the International Fly Tackle Dealer show.

Once the awards were handed out, I interviewed Drake Magazine Editor, Tom Bie.  It was pitch black, and I was taking my notes on a napkin.  The next morning when I was attempting to put a story together, I realized that I wasn’t actually looking at the napkin as I wrote scribbled.  I think I still have that napkin.

After the interview, I asked Tom if a short essay I had written had made it into the next issue of The Drake.  He was like, “Dude, I didn’t tell you?  That was one of my favorite pieces in the whole issue!”

And it just so happened that Tom had just picked up the new issue from the printer’s earlier that day.  A few moments later we were out on the sidewalk behind his truck, and he is showing me how my article came out (Fall ’10).

I’m normally a very quiet person, yet my mind is always racing with thoughts and ideas.  I can bottle it all up, but not when I’m drunk.  When intoxicated, all of the excitement and enthusiasm on my mind bursts out of my mouth. So there I am, sucking down free beer and blabbering on to Tom about how honored I was to get published in his magazine– my favorite magazine.

A homeless guy asked for a cigarette, and Tom escaped my verbal onslaught.

I went back into the bar and the scene in the pic just kind of caught my eye.  I love the way the bar area is lit, but what really draws me in are the lines created by the bar and the lights above it.  Something else that I think works for this picture isn’t so much the young lady at the bar, but the empty bar space between the the viewer and her.

When I saw the pic for the first time the next day, I couldn’t help but keep going back to it.  Its probably my favorite pic of the whole trip.

I made my way into the other side of the bar and listened to a great band that kind of reminded me of early Sublime.  I wish I could remember who they were.

Notice the photo is in black and white.

Just sayin’…

Nearly every recent study I’ve read, based on actual field data and not computer simulations or 30 year old creel reports, says that streams with high minimum length limits and low daily bag limits have higher relative abundance of brook trout over 10-inches than streams with low minimum length limits and high daily bag limits– or streams with slot limits.

picture the gorgeous color of this fish, but like four times bigger...

Only in northern Michigan can you get summer, spring, and winter all in the same week.  I’ve been thinking a lot about trout lately, but the warm couple weeks we had really has me thinking about carp, panfish, and smallies.  I’ve got so much water to explore and re-explore over the summer.  And when I think about it, I’ve got to relearn how to fly fish for smallies.

Back in New York, where I learned to fish for them, I was fortunate enough to have some world class smallie water all around me.  The only downside is it was all moving water.  Here in MI, that doesn’t do me much good. I’m in stillwater country when it comes to smallies.  There are a few streams with smallies within driving distance, but I won’t really be fishing them.

I can still remember catching my personal best smallie like it was this morning.  It was during one of those spur of the moment after work/ before English Lit trips when water temps were finally climbing out of their winter funk.

I was surprised to see a truck already there when I pulled into the public parking area. First instinct told me to go elsewhere, but I decided to hop out and see if there were any tails sticking up on the glassy flat below the pocketwater.  I came down the trail of broken concrete and spotted the other guy with a net in one hand, flipping over rocks with the other.

“How’s it going?”
“Alright” He says.

I scanned the flat, then noticed a fly rod sitting on the bank.

“Any luck?” I ask.
“Nah, they’re not biting here. I’m gonna go downstream.”

He picked up his rod and walked up to his old Ford Ranger. I scanned the barren flat for a few more seconds, weighing my options.

Something told me that he was kind of a tool, so I walked up the trail to my car and slid my waders on as he broke his rod down. Not that it would have mattered if he was some sort of fly fishing god, when I’ve got a feeling about a spot, I trust it.  No words were spoken, but body language said he thought I was either an idiot for fishing where the fish weren’t biting, or an arrogant SOB. Either way, he was probably right.

I tied on the fly I call “The Other One.” It’s probably my second most productive fly for carp and smallies, basically a brown seal dubbed dragonfly nymph with lead eyes and rubber legs. I waded out to the slackwater pockets at the tail of the riffles and started working it parallel to the white water.

Strip, strip, strip. Suddenly something descent is throbbing through the cork. Way too big to be a bass.  Visions of carp fill my brain, then it makes what I first think is a half-hearted effort at tailwalking.  Its about then that I realize it was just too fat to get any air.

Not a carp.

It fought like a big brown trout before giving in and gliding in to my right.  I slowly knelt down, completely and utterly blown away by it. It’s the fish I had been chasing for probably 10 years, and the one thing killing the moment is the realization that my camera was home, sitting on my computer desk.

I forgot about the camera and became mesmerized by the mass of its lips.  The fish made my already small hands look tiny.  I touched my thumb to it’s front lip and then stretched my pinky finger as far towards it’s tail as it would go and then touched my thumb to where my pinky just was and repeated. It was just under three hand stretches long, and after a quick calculation, I realized I was holding my first 24-plus inch smallie.

A million thoughts raced through my head  Not just thoughts, but the ultimate internal debate between my ego and my ethics.   My ego wanted to go so far as to build a small dike out of rocks around the fish so I could run home and get my camera- it wasn’t smallie season or it may have argued for keeping the fish.  My ethics said no.  If there was a smallie in the Hudson River that needed to spawn, this was it.

If only I had my camera with me.

I knew what I had to do.  I popped the fly from it’s heavy upper lip, burned the fish’s long vertical stripes into my memory one last time, and then lowered it completely into the stained water.  One second it was there, the next it was gone.

The Michigan DNR is seeking public comment on a proposed 10 fish per day brook trout limit in the Upper Penninsula (the current daily bag limit is 5 fish).  This is ironic for two reasons.

We live in a society of supersized fast food and 64-ounce big gulps.  As a whole, we Americans are overwhelmingly fat. We’re also overwhelmingly stupid.  We base our beliefs/opinions on what other stupid people tell us, instead of observations of the natural world.  We get an email from a friend or see a headline in our Facebook news feed and without pause, accept it as fact– especially if it is in line with our own ideological perspectives.

In short, we’re not only fat, we’re fat and stupid.

So what happens when stupid, fat people are into fishing for brook trout?  They want to take more brook trout home for dinner, of course.  I’ve read that one of the reasons proponents of the increased bag limit are basing their support on, is that folks in da U.P. are in a tough spot in today’s economy.  I’m calling bullshit.

Lets be honest.  Whats really going on is Billy Bob thinks that just because he can catch way more than 5 fish per day, he should be allowed to.  Billy Bob thinks that he can always catch five fish per day.  Unfortunately, I know a lot of Billy Bobs who all have the same sad tale.  “Fishing on this river ain’t what it used to be.”

Another unfortunate fact is that Billy Bob usually has a big mouth and a bunch of stupid friends who listen to Billy Bob.  Billy Bob complains that he can’t keep more than five fish, and before you know it, a whole group of Billy Bobs are complaining that they can’t keep more than five.

Since Billy Bob is stupid, he doesn’t really realize that one of the big reasons that Brookie fishing in the U.P. is so good right now is because the DNR lowered the limit from ten to five fish per day about ten years ago.

That leads to the most unfortunate fact of all, Billy Bob and his buddies are allowed to vote.  So their Billy Bob state congressman with a really loud mouth actually supports their stupid ideas– another post for a different day.  The fact remains, this issue is only an issue because Billy Bobs and special interest groups full of Billy Bobs have been lobbying our state Natural Resources Committee.

I think The Laughing Whitefish blog put it best when he wrote about the issue back in February,

“Namely our U.P. NRC Comminsioners & some U.P. sportsmans clubs aren’t thinking in the best interest of the people of Michigan  These people believe this is a feasible change to our regulations, but it is not up to these people.  They are pushing for this change quite aggressively and this is currently on the fast track.  Seriously, this is thinking that would happen in like 1935, its embarrassing for the state of Michigan & proposals like this need to be scrutinized this day in age. It looks as if this could possibly be passed prior to April! It rests in the anglers of Michigan as a whole and the biologists of MI DNR.”

Proponents also say that this proposal is based on science.  They say U.P. streams can support a 10 fish per day limit.  Once again, I call bullshit.  Show me a U.P. stream that can support a 10 fish per day limit and I will be more than happy to print this post out and eat it.

This proposal is based on social, not biological, carrying capacity; and I hope its shot down.

This is what a 10 brook trout per day bag limit looks like.

Bjorn Stromsness of Bonefish on the Brain shoots out an email to a group of fellow fly fishing blog writers pitching an idea.  A big idea.

I’m paraphrasing.

Bjorn:  ”Dudes, lets all write a short story on whatever we want, then compile all of them in ebook form, find someone to edit it, and then figure out all of the other stuff along the way.”

Contributors:  ”Sounds like a great idea!  Lets do it!”

Next thing you know, Kirk Deeter is writing the forward.  Bob White is on board with a story and cover art.  Gracie is handling the computer stuff.  Pete McDonald and Bruce Smithhammer are editing.

Yeah, most of us have had stories/photos published in mainstream mags– some even have had books made out of real paper published.  But I think I speak for the entire group when I say that we’re all pretty damned excited about this.

Who contributed?  The best of the best.

Matt Dunn, fellow Michigander and writer of Fish Beer.
Bob White, an artist with the pen as well as the paint brush.
Davin Ebanks, of flatswalker.com
Michael Gracie, IT guru
Alex Landeen, who from what I hear, is well versed in the kitchen
Bjorn, the man with the plan
Ralph Bartholdt, working on a book of fiction, and a guidebook to Lake Coeur d’Alene, due out in 2012
Bruce Smithhammer, probably one of my favorite writers coming from www.mouthfuloffeathers.com and busterwantstofish.com
Matt Smythe, super strong writer and makes a mean pot of venison and noodles
Pete McDonald, another excellent writer, author of The Blitz, and longtime writer of Fishing Jones.
And me.

I’ve read the other writers’ submissions, and the quality is top notch.  I’m so proud to be a part of this.

So what is it?  Its callled Pulp Fly: Vol. One.  Yes, there will be more.

 The title, “Pulp Fly” plays on the pulp fiction phenomenon of the early 20^th century, when an explosion of periodicals published on cheap paper brought new and unconventional voices to a wide audience. History is being repeated in the 21^st century with the advent of the e-book, an inexpensive way to bring new fly-fishing writing to “print.”

Some contributors to the project have written professionally for established fly-fishing publications such as The Drake, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Fly Rod & Reel, and Fly Fish Journal among others, while a few of the writers are making their voices heard for the first time.

Pulp Fly was created to offer a new venue for sporting topics, and for talented writers emerging and well-known; to circumvent the cumbersome and expensive process of print book publishing and take advantage of new technologies to reach new audiences.

It will be available on April 1st, 2012 at the Amazon Kindle Store, and on other e-reading devices soon after.  And just in case you didn’t know, you can download and read ebooks on your computer with the free Kindle app.

That means you have no excuses.  Buy it.  Not to support a bunch of starving fly fishing writers, but because its really freaking good.

In the meantime, stop by the Pulp Fly facebook page and click the like button.  Tell your friends, your mom, your dog, and anyone else that will listen.  Tell them a group of guys who have been writing about what they love for years got together and actually followed through on a really great idea, and they did it right.

My first bamboo rod wasn’t really a bamboo rod.  It was a bamboo blank, given to me by a fishing buddy from the Bay City area who was learning how to build his own bamboo fly rods at the time.  I remember pulling each piece out of the PVC-tube after the mail lady leaned it against my front door and just being blown away by how gorgeous it was.  Still, I didn’t really get it, and traded the blank not long after.

My second experience with bamboo was on the lower Au Sable after fishing with the same guy, Bob, and another fudgee, Steve.  Fudgee’s are what people from northern Michigan call people from downstate who come up for the fudge, the outdoors, fall colors, morel mushrooms, or any of the other million reasons they come up.

We had just fished through an amazing sulfur hatch, and were standing around the tailgate of Bob’s pickup truck talking about nothing really important.   Bob was toying around with his newest build as he talked, and snapped the tip of the rod while pulling the nail knot through the tip.  I don’t really get shocked by much, but I was speechless.  I wanted to pass out.  Bob investigated the spot it broke, made a few mental notes, and shrugged it off before tossing the broken rod onto a pile of rod tubes.

It was about five more years before my next bamboo experience.  I was visiting with my grandmother when she mentioned that the guy who installed her new furnace found some old fishing poles on one of the heat ducts in the basement.  She suggested I go down and see if I wanted any of them.

I hate my grandma’s basement.  Its dark, damp, and covering the ceiling are the thickest cobwebs I’ve ever seen.  Plus I’m pretty sure its haunted.  Probably my Great Grandpa Williams messing around in his workshop.  It really couldn’t be anyone else giving me the spooks– besides me– as the house she lives in was built by my great grandpa, an electrician originally from Vermont.  I was only six when he died, and don’t remember much about him, but I do remember that he seemed to always stay busy working on stuff around the house.

I found the old rods leaning against the furnace.  There was a cardboard tube full of old spinning rods, one of which is a telescoping rod made out of steel.  My grandma said that she used to use it when she was a little girl fishing with her dad, Great Grandpa Williams, on family trips “up north,” which I later learned were sometimes on the Au Sable.  The next time I stop by, I want to get more details on those fishing trips.

The other rod wasn’t in a tube.  it was in a rod sock.  I untied flap on the sock, and pulled out what I  immediately recognized as a bamboo fly rod.  An old bamboo fly rod.

According to my grandma, the rod had to have been on that heating duct for at least 50 years, as her dad hadn’t been fishing since the 50′s.  I was really blown away by the rod, but more by the revelation that a lost relative dabbled with fly fishing.

I went right to google to dig up anything I could on the old rod.  While there wasn’t much to go by on the rod, the sock had a manufacturer, model, and even the street the factory was on in Chicago.  Assuming its the original sock, it was made by Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co..  Going off of a website I found that outlines the history of Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co, they were at that location between 1903 and 1924, making this rod around 80 to 110 years old.

When I told my grandma how old the rod was, she questioned whether or not it belonged to her dad.  She was more inclined to think it was her grandpa’s fly rod.  My great, great grandpa.  He died at a fairly young age, I wanna say in his 30s, due to ensepholitis after some dental work.

Whether the rod is my great grandpa’s, or my great, great grandpa’s, its my most prized possession, despite the fact that I never really got to know either.

The company that made it eventually became “True Value,” a big box in that era.  I’m guessing the service they provided at the time the rod was for sale was pretty good, there was a guy behind the counter who knew all about fly rods, and carpentry, and plumbing, and whatever else they sold.  A big box then was probably like a mom and pop shop now.

The rod is in pretty good shape, and I’m tempted to fish it just once.  But the thought of it breaking, man, I thought it was bad watching someone else break their rod.  I’d never let myself hear the end of it.

My next bamboo fly rod experience came a few months ago while I was working at the local fly shop.  An old timer said he had an old bamboo fly rod and reel he’d like to give me, if I wanted them.

He brought them into work a couple days later and told me where he got it from.  I guess when he was a kid, an old timer who lived on the Sturgeon River gave him the rod and reel– about 50 years ago.  I did some digging and the reel is actually pretty special.  Its a Martin No. 1 Automatic, and not just any Martin No. 1.  This one was made while Martin was still located in Ilion, NY– before they moved to Mohawk, NY.  The company was founded in Ilion in 1894, and then moved to Mohawk in 1902.  Meaning mine is one of the very first ever made.  I’ve dug around ebay and the web, and still haven’t seen another.

The rod has no markings on it, but it does have an agate stripper guide which makes me think it was a fine rod in its day.  One of the ferrules is broken, but other than that, its in great condition.  While its not a family heirloom, its also one of my most prized possessions.

That leads up to my most recent bamboo experience.  I’ve kind of gotten into vintage reels.  Not so much to collect, but to fish with.  The more simple, the better.  Well, that kind of led to some snooping around of bamboo fly rod auctions.  And, yep, you guessed it, now I’m getting into bamboo fly rods.

I don’t really have any interest in the high end stuff– only cause I can’t afford it.  My interest is in what would have been a working man’s fly rod when it was new.  Something a guy could throw a $5-bill on the counter and walk out of the hardware store with.  Something I can actually fish with and not be a wreck over when I break it.

I learned that Montague was just the kind of company I was looking for.  So a couple days ago, I won an old Montague Clear Lake for like $17 in decent condition.  Then, shortly after, I ran across another Montague auction.  This one spoke to me like I’ve never been spoken to by a fly rod.  It whispered sweet nothings in my ear, and I knew right away that despite it being an old “working man’s rod,” it wasn’t going to go for $17.

I put it on my watch list and didn’t bid.  My plan was to see how how it gets up to, then if it was in my price range, come in and steal it at the last minute.  I turned the computer off and went to bed, only I couldn’t sleep.  All I could think about was that rod.  I grabbed my phone, opened up my handy dandy ebay app, and bid a measly $40.  Just enough to put me over the current high bid.  Not enough.

That was a couple days ago, and ever since, I haven’t been able to get that rod out of my mind.  I can’t explain it. Its not that its pretty.  Its not that I’ll probably be able to feel the deer hair on my comparaduns whir through the air when casting it.  Its not even the fact that it was made in the 1940s.  There are like 10 other auctions for the same model– not in near as good of condition– available for less money, but this is the one I have to have.  And I have no freaking clue why.

Tonight when I got home, I put in a bid substantially higher than my original.  I’d love to tell you about it by publishing this post right now, but then one of you might go looking for it.  And there isn’t a chance in hell I’m going to let that happen.  I’m not even going to type the model name right now, as I’ve been known to accidentally hit “publish” instead of “save draft.”  One day and 21 hours to go, and then we can talk all about this beauty.

I hope I win, and I hope that my wife won’t kill me when she finds out that I bought another fly rod.  But most of all, I hope that actually fishing with a bamboo fly rod this season will help me understand what it is about it that has me acting completely fascinated about them.

Okay, that was all written a few weeks ago.  No, I didn’t win the one I wanted, but, I did win something better.

You’ll be hearing all about it…

Angler 1: Remember that movie, “The Perfect Storm?” Those guys caught a ton of fish.
Angler 2: Yup.
Angler 1: That storm is what made the fishing so great. Fish love a good storm. Those guys slayed ‘em.
Angler 2: Yeah, and then they all died.
Angler 1: Tomorrow will be so awesome.

(Yes, when it comes to wading boots, I’m a Korkers guy.)

Ironically enough, when I ordered my Chrome boots– technically the Darkness, black version of the Chrome– I really wanted their Metalhead boots.  The reason why was that after comparing the two at the International Fly Tackle Dealer Show in Denver, 2010, I thought the Metalhead offered more value for your dollar.  You still got the OmniTrax 3.0 soles, BOA Laces, decent H2O drainage, and a solidly constructed boot.  The only advantage the Chrome had, in my opinion, was better drainage, and they were a little lighter.

I’m all about saving weight whenever possible, but for me, the ~$40 price difference didn’t justify the weight/drainage differences.

Chrome (Darkness) Review

Only problem was when I ordered, I need new wading boots for an upcoming trip into the Adirondacks, and of course, the Metalheads weren’t available until two weeks after I’d be back.  So I ordered the Redsides for my son, a basic boot which still boasts OmniTrax 3.0 interchangeable sole technology and a quick lacing system for about $100, and the Darkness boots for myself.

As mentioned in the link above, the Darkness boots were alright, but they didn’t wow me.  The inner lace guides slipped out, resulting in wasted time trying to slip them back in instead of fishing, and in my opinion, an inability to get the most out of the BOA system.  I could never get these boots as tight and secure as I could with the old Pro Guide model.  Sure they were light, but when you’re trekking over slippery boulders of various sizes for extended periods of time, stable and tight always beats light.

Final verdict, see my opinion on the Metalhead below.

Metalhead

As mentioned above, these were the boots I originally wanted, but couldn’t quite get.  When I did get them, I was all smiles.  They were exactly what I had hoped the Chrome/Darkness boots would be, and probably more.  For the first time since wearing my Pro Guides, I could say that my boots felt like extensions of my body.  Not only could I get them tight, I could get them too tight.  I’ve had no issued at all with the OmniTrax 3.0 interchangeable soles.  On paper, these boots are heavier than the Chrome, but so far, I’ve yet to actually notice any difference out on the water.  Final verdict, these boots are awesome in every way possible.  For now, my search for the ultimate wading boot is complete.

Redside

Yes, a pair of Redsides also resides in my household.  After experiencing the excellent traction of both the studded felt and studded rubber soles Korkers offers, I just didn’t feel right about letting my 10, now 11, year old son wade in anything else.  At the same time, I didn’t think it was necessary for him to be walking around in $200 wading boots that he would just outgrow after a season or two.  The Redside is Korkers’ lowest price-point (right around $100) wading boot which still features the OmniTrax 3.0 interchangeable soles.

While I can’t offer my opinion on them, my son loves them.  No busted knees or dunkings since he started wearing them, and he said they were pretty comfortable after hiking around 4-miles up and down a mountainside brookie stream in them last summer.  Final verdict, great boot for the budget conscious angler or anyone who isn’t a fan of the BOA system.

Fisherman’s Moc

I also have a pair of Korkers’ Fisherman’s Mocs.  These are basically mocassins built on top of their kling-on rubber soles.  I have more miles on these since getting them than any of my other boots/shoes combined.  They’re comfortable.  You can wear them around the house like slippers, and take the trash out without putting your shoes on.

My wife doesn’t like them for their cloak and dagger abilities.  When I wear them around the house, she’ll say, “Take off your shoes!”  To which I reply, “They’re not shoes, they’re slippers.”  Then when we’re in public, she’ll say, “I told you not to wear your slippers in public!”  To which I reply, “They’re not slippers, they’re mocs.”  Either way, I win…

I wear them to work, the kids’ games, around the house, for running errands, and of course, when fishing.  One of the nice things about them is you can stomp the heel area down and wear them like a traditional slipper.  This is nice when getting in and out of your waders at the back end of your car.  No more pogo-stick hopping around on one foot while making the transition from shoes to waders, and vise versa.

Final verdict, these are well-made, comfortable mocs to wear whenever you’re not in your wading boots.