critter

I see that it has been a little while since I’ve posted anything so I have a little update.  This past week I was feeling a little “off” for the first half.  Good or bad, I missed out on the open-tying night at the Fly Angler and couple other opportunities the weekend before, but I got a lot of sleep and filled myself up with lots of vitamins and fluids.  And after the past three days, I think my shoulder is back in where is should be, that is to say it has stopped clicking every time I raise it up now.
I had a blast at the Thursday night fly tiers meeting.  Anderson had a weird sense of humor that night, and it was making us all laugh our asses off.  I mostly just came to socialize and had tied a couple of flies at Feiker’s vise when I decided he had abandoned his tying station longer then I could bear.  So he had a couple more flies in is box when he had eventually returned with a fresh beverage in hand.

Saturday was the highlight of the week for me.  Ben, his wife Amy, and Andy all came over for a Lie-n-Tie.  We had set an additional challenge for the event in that everyone could bring beer or wine, but they all in some way had to be related to fish, fishing, or rivers.  Most of our finds were pretty tasty.  Jen and I had cleared the kitchen table and turned on the Olympics for background noise and we tied flies from 1pm to around 7pm or so.   Amy brought some delicious goodies for the event, including home-made chips in the shape of fish.  How can you go wrong with that I ask?  Well, you can’t!  Jen had also prepared chili in the slow cooker for everyone to snack on as we chatted and tied flies.

Baily checked in occasionally to see what we up to and more importantly to inspect what materials we were using.  I think, after last weeks ‘encounter’ were she found and distributed two full packs of peacock herl throughout the house, she now has a heightened awareness of the potential play things for her amusement.  I’m just glad she didn’t get into the more expensive feathers.

At the end of the day, I set up my mini-studio to photograph some of our flies that we would use for the next four months for the “Fly of the Month” patterns, and called it a night after that.  I am positive everyone had a good time and that this is something we will have to keep in mind to do again.

Hey everyone, I have spent most of my day doing some quick clean up, editing the photos I took last weekend at the expo.  Because there are so many of them, I posted them to one of my online web albums, which is at Picasa.  I hope you like them.  Happy viewing!

Last night, we had a great guest who did a steelhead presentation, his name was Scott Thorpe.  He started with a brief but cool video of the Talaheim Lodge, which he guides for in Alaska and features Helicopter fly-out fishing.  When he is not guiding in Alaska, he can be found guiding in Montana, Minnesota or Wisconsin.  Initially an Architect, he left the profession four years ago to “get serious” about his passion for fishing.

Even though the roads were crappy (as my work commute was two hours to get to and from home instead of 45 minutes) we had a good size audience.  GOTTA LOVE STEELHEAD FANATICS DISREGARD FOR BAD WEATHER CONDITIONS!

Scott covered fly fishing tactics, ethics, a little history, and his favorite flies, areas along the Minnesota north shore and the Wisconsin south shore, stories from his past 40 years of chasing steelhead as a fisherman and as a guide, and the nuances of how steelhead are not trout.

It was a fun night and I walked away with a lot to think to about, as I am confident that Scott has forgotten more about fishing steel then I have learned so far.

Some of you have heard of me speaking ill of my enemy, the Snagasaurus*. I continue to speak ill of said pain in the ass and developed “Stage II” in my war against it.  “Stage I” was me bitching about it to anyone who would listen when I talked or wrote about it while sharing a fishing story.

“Stage II” is launching a Public Awareness Campaign to educate and inform the public so that they know what and who this evil doer is through the use of our greatest on-line reference of the 21st century, Wikipedia.  I would like to give a special thanks to my Editorial Staff and Public Relations Consultant for this campaign, Mrs. Critter, who assisted with all the English mumbo jumbo formatting.

THE PROBLEM:  You will not be able to see it on Wikipedia as our submission was deleted within minutes of posting it.  The reason given was that “the information was unverifiable…and…can not use…for personal inventions.”  I call Bullsh@#!!  I know many who have met this evil doer who have had terrible personal encounters.  Now that we know that the evil Snagasaurus has an insider at Wikipedia on it’s payroll, I will have to find other means to disseminate information to the masses.  And for the record, Mrs. Critter is very upset with the henchman at Wikipedia after all her effort to figure out diphthongs (whatever those are) that she had included in the submission.

Mark my wordsssss Snagasaurus…bewarrrrre.

* the truncated and much less embellished definition from what Jen and I had before we were deleted: Snagasaurus is the entity below a water surface that causes one who is fishing to get hung-up on or even lose their fly or fishing lure. Usually there is no indication of its presence as it resides outside the victims (i.e. fisherman) field of vision. Frequent snagasaurus encounters can result in frustrating outdoors experiences as well as increasing the expenses incurred during and following the fishing endeavors.

This Christmas was a great one as far as a fly fisherman and fly tier goes.  I was fortunate to have received many nice presents that will be used for many years to come.  I also received (from my grandmother who passed away earlier this year) a nice family heirloom.

Because of the weather, plans were changed and we decided to stay at my parents home for the weekend instead of traveling to see my wife’s family like we had planned.  It was good time, we ate homemade Christmas goodies (Jen especially appreciated the rum balls and the truffles), I tied some flies for both dad and myself, football was on in the background, and the frozen lake was pretty to look at while the snow continuously fell.

Our new goal now is to see Jen’s family next weekend, even though there won’t be as many there, I am sure it will be as festive and just as meaningful.