The Continuing Adventures

So my life has been non-stop for about a week now, and I have not checked in.  I know it must be bad when Sarah called me up to the living room yesterday to say "Bruce you have not blogged in a while."  Honestly I did not miss my time away from the keyboard but today is a cleaning day (6 days of traveling and 2 fishing trips in the past week and a half has left the house a little messy) and with all that cleaning I have had time to think about what to say.  First let me say that my wife did a great job recounting two of the events.

A cool picture Sarah took on her iPhone of the farm country I called home for so many years.

First was my sisters graduation.  I have not said it on here yet - Congratulation Steph!  You will do great on the next step of your life.  My wife shared this event on her blog in two posts and here are her two links, please go read about my wonderful sister's graduation, and see a little of where I came from.   (Hard Work Pays Off)  (Graduation Sneak Peak).

My beautiful little sister.

Next I had an anniversary, 2 years of marriage to my wonderful wife Sarah.  The thing that makes me laugh and also makes me think she understand my fishing obsession is that Sunday night (the night before our actual anniversary) I was asked if I wanted to go try to fish for Striped Bass the next day.   I carefully thought through the next day and asked Sarah if she was going to the office, then if she wanted to go out to eat, and then I said, "Would you mind if I went fishing on the bay till dinner?"  Fully expecting to have to work for this I almost started in with my defense when she said sure (and the good sure not the one with undertones of no).  So here are her accounts of the anniversary of our marriage.  LOVE YA HUN!  Rehearsing Anniversaring; 2 Years; More Wedding Pics;  and lastly after hours on a boat cutting bait and catching nothing Anniversary Dinner

I have never been a fan of the finger point but Sarah loves this picture and truth be told there are worse pictures of me.

So now for a quick word about the fishing in this long span of time since I last posted last.  We went to PA for my sister's graduation, but another perk of the trip was that my brother was home from Wisconsin for the same reason I was home.  We grew up fishing for trout and other fresh water fish together, and we were fishing partners for years.  I do not remember many fishing trips as a kid, teen, and even the first couple years in my twenties where Jay was not along.  Then I moved to Atlanta with Sarah, and started fishing alone.  I have been fishing alone ever since, and the truth is that first bass adventure with John a while ago, was the first time I fished with anyone in a long time.  Jason and I fished together last Friday.  We fished a spot we had fished together countless times as kids and we did well there, missing and catching some fish as we moved up stream.  Here is my wife's take on my brother and I fishing together again.  If you don't click over to read the post maybe do it to see the picture of the crappy Jason caught it was huge! (Temporarily Single)

These were phone pictures and so this first fish needed two shots.

This wasn't a bad little stocker, I put him back in hopes he outsmarts the gangs of people who were on the stream that day.

Then we went to another spot where he and my did fished a pond and I hit the stream.  I did good on both streams I fished that day, and was shocked that the streams have not really changed a lot over the years.  It was nice to have a fishing partner again but Jay and dad wanted to call it a day, when it started to get hot, so I followed them home.

I got nothing but browns all about the same size. 

Until hit the other stream where I caught 3 of these little guys who were about 5 inches of so.

I think they might have been hold overs from last year or very early in this season because they had all their fins a the colors were great.  Check out the red on the top and bottom of this little guy's tail.

Once we were home I convinced Jay to come help me try to land a carp (it is a goal to hook one on my fly rod).  We when to a local pond where carp were everywhere and after spooking a bunch I had one take my fly where I promptly ripped the fly right back out of its mouth.  Jason had no hits at all and after an hour it really was hot so we went home.  Needless to say I miss having a regular trout fishing partner and will most likely never really have another trout fishing partner.  I am planning on going to see what the fishing is like out his way at the end of the summer, and I hope that he can come here and fish with me sometime in the future.




This leads me up to the last two days.  Saltwater fishing......

Just a couple days later I was looking at this...  Saltwater and lots of it!

That could be all I have to say about that, but I guess I will give a little more detail.  In the last two days (Monday and Tuesday)  I went fishing with John and his brother Brian for stripers.  Brian has a nice Sea Fox (center console boat mainly used for fishing) and we went in the bay looking for striped bass.  On my anniversary The first day we fished for a couple hours but the tides were wrong and a storm was rolling in so we quit before any action.  So the next day we went out again.  After leaving the dock at 5:30am and hit some tried and true spots where John landed the only Striper of the day, which was too small to keep.  We changed spots a couple time and still no good striper bites but now a rain storm was coming.  After talking about quitting the Peter (the 4th of the 4 of us) convinced us all we needed to stay out a little longer.  We changed tactics and started trolling and I am sad to report I lost the only fish we had while trolling.

Picture of Striper is coming

Finally we decided to do what would be best for our fishing pride.  We decide to fish for Scup, which I am told are the sunfish of the sea in these parts.  After a good boat ride we got to a spot I was told we would catch them.  We  were not there long before Peter landed a Fluke big enough to keep.   Then we started to catch scup and by we I mean everyone but me.  John, Brian and Peter all had scup, John also had a black bass and I was starting to think I was doing something wrong.  Then I landed a fluke, and about 3 or 4 scup on just a couple drifts and that restored my faith in saltwater fishing.  Needless to say we wished we had gotten some stripers or blues to show for almost 12 hours on the boat, but I think we all had a good time.


Now with a surf rod I am borrowing from my dad I think I want to try to catch some more of these saltwater fish.  So stay tuned because this summer I am planning on putting in the time and effort to try and learn how to saltwater fish.  I might even try to do some salt water fly fishing!



-Bruce

Joy

Nothing to say about an amazing valley view.

We were in Connecticut Sunday evening and most of the day Monday because we were going to a memorial service in NYC.  We did it so we would not have 6 plus hours of driving all in one day, but I did not complain because it meant we would be near some really fine trout streams and rivers.  I had grand thoughts of hitting the Housatonic River and trying to catch some monster trout, but the weirdest thing happened on the ride to the river.  The mountains were electric green and looking alive and all my thoughts of landing a monster trout on the river faded.

That first fish but the picture doesn't do it justice.

I had a complete change of heart and suddenly felt the need to reflect on a much smaller stream.  So I went to a small mountain stream that I did not fish at all last year.  It is one of my favorite streams near Sarah's parents house for many reasons.  As I parked the car and strung up my rod I could hear the stream down the trail and right then the reflecting started.

One of many delicate releases this day.

This guy might have been a new addition to the stream by the state early this spring because the color was not like that others I caught the rest of the day.

 This stream is kind of special because I fished it the second time I came to visit Sarah and her family in CT.  That same weekend was the first time I met the lady who's memorial we were going to.  Then a couple years later I took my brother fishing on the steam, the weekend my family came to visit Sarah's family (because we had just gotten engaged).  There was also the week of our wedding where I fished it alone as an unmarried fisherman for the last time.  I fished it alone because my brother could not be in the wedding due to some obligations he had to the Coast Guard (he had just gotten out of boot camp and needed to report) and the trip was going to be just him and I.  Looking back that was the last time I fished that small brook that tumbles down between two mountains until this past Monday.

Up till this fish that had all been much smaller.

This is the only rainbow I have ever caught out of here, and the picture again doesn't show the colors the way they were.  He had a lime green back, and a neon pink strip and when he was in the water it was an amazing sight.

I have never been skunked on this stream, I fished it in a downpour once and still managed to land two small brook trout.  So it was only fitting that after I tied the ausable bomber (Thanks Small Stream Reflections this is my new small streams go to) on and made my first drift down the left side of a pool. A small trout came up took that fly off the water like it was the first food it had seen all day.  I spent the better part of four hours Monday morning reflecting on that stream and fishing of course.  I caught countless trout and even managed to land three of the biggest fish I have ever caught on this stream.  Truth be told all those other fish did not matter because with that first one I was instantly filled with joy.

Saying good bye to the big bow. This was now the biggest fish of the day.

Joy.  I remembered why I love fishing for native and wild trout.  They are beautiful, smart, fast and joyful.  With each fish and each memory I smiled bigger  and at some point near the end of my fishing trip with mosquitoes and flies dive-bombing me I started to laugh because I was still catching trout and did not want to leave.  Now as I am scratching those bites on my arms, hands and neck I am reminded of how great morning adventure it was.

Two casts later in the same small pool was this beauty! Until I landed this fish I didn't believe fish this big would be up this stream as far as I was, because I was in skinny water at this point.

On my 15th or 20th last cast I landed this fish and my ausable bomber was losing it's tail and a piece of hacked was dangling from the back.

Now I am looking forward to the next adventure on my National Take Me Fishing Week Tour:  My home waters back in PA.  My brother will be home from WI and I hope to get out fishing with him at least in the short time I will be there.      


-Bruce

National Boating and Fishing Week Underway

So after I wrote the post National Boathing and Fishing Week the writer of the blog Small Stream Reflections left a comment saying that he plans to do the same thing he always does (fish as much as possible).  I plan to do that same thing, but the part that makes this week different for me is the fact that I will be traveling and it happens to fall on a week that is meant to promote fishing and boating nation wide.

In my post I planned to kick this week off by taking my wife fishing for free fish day again (second year in a row).  We borrowed a canoe and hit the water, and instead of me putting a couple pictures around a nice story maybe you just read my wife's account of the afternoon.  She posted this on her blog and it is a great telling of what happened on Saturday afternoon. The title of her post is Free Fish Day.  Be sure to look at all the pictures, she is talented with that camera and I have been trying to get her to come along and take more fishing pictures for me.

Well I hope to post a lot this week and maybe that will help my posts stay really consistent for a while.  Stay tuned for a really successful trout fishing trip, the trip was successful on more then just a catching fish level so come on back for find out more.

-Bruce