Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Thanks, James. That shit is pro. The cigar is a nice touch.

Guitar Picks? Whoda thunk.

-Alex who need to stick some large slimy then smoke it like a phatpimp. Word.

Aaron pensils out DWD 4.0

-Alex for Aaron who took like three hours to finish the shading on her upper lip.

Part 1 - suspect behavior, dirty undies and slime.

Someone painted red stains on the eight-foot white cross where the nails would have been.  Men sometimes sit behind the small store on a dirty picnic table. They are open when they feel like it so go away and come back later. Dogs roam feral through tall trees over the bitumen and aggregate and through the trampled field where soiled undergarments are discarded. The cows don't seem to mind.

Two men in an early 70's off-white Ford F100 bounce and rattle down the dirt path that bisects the field. They are up to something at the far end, their heads dip and bob as they slowly move across the ground, occasionally disappearing altogether behind the taller shrubs and grass as they walk back and forth from the bed of the truck.

Clouds loom ominous and move quickly over rusty playground equipment. A faded carousel slowly choked by weeds longs for small hands as a school bus rumbles out of a dirt drive across the street.

The road from here to there curves through the middle of this place and I have driven it often over the last fifteen years and never stopped. The pond is on the edge of a hill and reaches out just far enough to caress the highway and make fishy passersby wonder at sixty miles per hour if there might be something swimming around in that shallow weed-choked water.

Why did the fat guys cross the road? Because they heard there was pike on the other side.

Up Next: Bartenders with boyfriends, a new nacho recipe, and we play another exciting round of "What Important Thing Did Aaron Leave at Home This Time?"

-Alex who brings the bacon.

My friend Snots

My friend Snots he's a hell of a guy.

Let me tell you why,

He's the epitome of predatory.

My friend Snots he's a hell of a guy.

Let me tell you all why,

He drips with slimy satisfactory.

My friend Snots is a heck of a joe.

You should watch him go!

Hangin' in the weed line,

With a sharp curve of teeth shine.

My friend Snots has little concerns,

About the flies that he spurns.

Until the line pulls tightly,

With an angry steel finality.

-Alex who loves him some pike and Primus.

From Finland With Love

Baltic Pike Flies, courtesy of Mr. Graham.

Just in time for spring pike. Booyah.

Pike fail

If catching a fish was just a bonus, you wouldn't work so hard trying.

You would be able to list at least one other reason for the drive, one other destination that wasn't a body of water, either flowing or still, that was actually a planned part of the trip.

I can say that the trip was a success because we got to the destination, fished and came back but the fishing was a failure and I got my ass handed to me by the wind. Throwing a 12wt warm water intermediate line is like throwing braided steel cable when it is below freezing and the gusts keep blowing your line out of the stripping net. I didn't really plan on using it, but it was the only thing I brought that could push into the cold wall of air.

We will be back for spring pike for sure and at least now I know what the lakes look like.

Ice Coffee

Frozen man-parts at Ashurst Lake

A little poon-ice

Upper Lake Mary

Getting ready in the parking lot

Black and red didn't work, and nothing else did either.

A little ice on the guides

It's my fathers left-handed Galvin... I don't reel backwards.

With a couple pointers Kyle handles a camera pretty well.

I would like to thank Paul and the guys at Babbitt's FlyFishing in Flagstaff for the hookup on the hats and the lake tips, "If it ain't chartreuse, it ain't no use."

Good to know.

-Alex who at least now has a huge box of flies ready for next year.

last minute tune-ups

I heard the dryer running as I walked to the back of the house with a wet load of laundry in my arms. Kyle was kneeling down near the exhaust vent that pumps warm air into the walled back patio.

"You got much time on that load?" I asked as I approached.

"There is nothing in there," he said. "I am drying the heads on my flies."

I looked around the basket in my arms and saw he was holding something long and fuzzy up to the vent.

"That's kind of a waste, dontcha think?"

 "Well, we don't have a hair dryer."

"I have a heat gun."

"That will ruin the fibers," he said as he wiggled the flies in the hot air.

"You don't think that running the dryer on high with nothing in it to dry your flies is a waste of energy?"

He scratched his bald head and looked up, "Well, at least I am doing two at once."

...

vacuum dubbing

The truck is about half packed, and food items need to be bought but at least my floor is clean. I remembered to pack my ball warmers this time.

I feel ready, and the lakes wait about 5 hours away. I just hope the pike are still feisty enough to come out and play.

It has been years since I have been snowed on while fishing, and I am kinda looking forward to it.

some kind of a record

3/0 pike-glisi

As I pulled the table up to the couch and sat down I felt renewed and full. A few hours previous I dined on New York steak, sauteed vegetables in pasta with a creamy-parmesan sauce and shrimp scampi. It felt right for working with Puglisi fibers, and sipping a pino that may or may not have spent a little too long in a hot car seemed fitting... Aaron took all beer home so there wasn't much of a choice, anyways.

Head start round 2: and nothing on earth can save you now.

I could tell you that I was hungry and that would probably be the truth but at the moment I really can't remember. All it took was a mention in passing and I was moving for my keys... 

...and there is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of a McRib binge.

They brought it back. Again. And made a big deal about it. Again. Damn them. But I can't blame it all on the preformed patty, the bbq soaked onions or the pickles as I had already moved the vise out of the way and was reclining on the couch, but I am pretty sure there was a round two on the horizon but now I am not so certain.

A quick double-dose of cheap light beer is starting to bring me back around, but I still feel like some part of me may be slipping away and working its way south to fight the good fight.

The whip finish tool is just out of reach. If I could get to it, maybe I could use it to snag that pack of hooks and a bobbin. My finger tips tickle the thin cool metal. Maybe all is not lost. Maybe I can find the will to continue, string a few more together, pave my way towards preparedness with feathers and flash.

Andy Dufresne said that hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things... but he probably never ate at McDonalds.

A head start

I grew restless at the bench and that was good for nothing. My back was hurting and Señor ham-egg-potato-cheese beckoned from the corner where the woman knows that it's only "the green" salsa in the bag for this guero.

I saw the first one float by when the headlights kicked on lighting the brick wall of the carport. One is easy to deal with, but then there were two, then three. My God! How did they all get in the truck? I started waving madly grasping and groping to catch the suckers before they could feast on my flesh and I got one of the little bastards but as the dome light flicked on I saw that it was just a bit of schlappen fuzz. Damn. Things get strange sometimes and I had to get moving.

When you are not sure what to expect you need all the artillery you can muster. I may even be optimistic and consider this a head start.


But the burrito comes first.

There are pike that need to be caught and a hungry man is easily distracted at the vise.

even more amounts of super awesome at the Swedish fly fair

Simon Graham takes his FGFF sticker booty to Sweden, Ya! See his write-up of the event.

In Colorado These "Ice Guys" don't mess around

When Ice fishing, (something I am not very good at), everyone has a hidden spot to drill. Chris and his buddy Andy have found an area that is virtually untouched, and holds the big pike. I have been out 2 times on the Ice with my buddy Nate at Eleven Mile Reservoir, and only pulled up a nice Bow, No complaints it was a fun adventure walking on water, hearing the ice crack below you, and watching my buddy fall on his ass almost breaking it!!!

I haven't really seen too much fish through the ice bit Nate saw himself a beast of a pike as I was pulling in my good 14 inch bow, and a fat little fart he was. Normally I do not go for "Bait Dunkers", "Bait Chuckers" or what ever the hell you want to call them. Obvious fact is you can't throw a fly on a frozen lake when there is 20" of ice.


Chris on Saturday comes into the royal tavern after sending me these photos on my cell phone about the 9lb. pike he caught and thought he was the man.
After tossing a 10 inch mud dog on his tip up in his new secrete hole I would agree.

So Chris and I are sitting at our friends house, Jake and Sina, The German couple as I like to call them, Watching the Vikings and Saints game. I thought Farve was going to make his last trip to the Super Bowl instead the last pass he throws had to be a damn interception. Anyway enough of that rambling, Chris and I go outside of a smoke when his phone rings. After all day of bragging about his 9lb. pike his head drops, his voice has a bit of a stutter, and his skin turns pale. His Ice fishing buddy, Andy, just tells him that he pulled a 20lb pike out of the same hole! Chris, I can tell is kicking himself in the ass a bit for watching the football game instead of fishing this hole again. But what are you gonna do? who would think over 30 lbs of pike would be sitting in the same hole? So a total of 7 pike caught in the same hole in 2 days, I think that is a good way to start 2010........

Kyle - who needs to do some ice fishing.