I have not created a new post since December, so much to my disbelief, this is officially my first post of 2014.
Drunken Prayer "Into the Missionfield"
Really, in the fly-fishing realm of reality, not much has happened. I've made two trips north over the past six months: one during Spring break, and the other a couple of weeks ago. I did pretty well on both of those romps, taking a good number of trout on the Spring, White, and Norfork Rivers. Each time I go fishing, I take my old friend the GoPro with me and alternate between vids and pics as I attempt to capture the action. This has caused a backlog on my SD card of footage dating back to last Summer's epic adventure out west. I am winding up the final couple weeks of summer school teaching at the local college here and am currently (of course) planning new trips for July and August. It is time to clean my SD card and make room for additional great footage of all those toads I'll be catching this summer. So let's just call this the first installment of my greatest hits of 2013. This particular video is a compilation of a great fall morning on the Spring River where I pounded fish after fish on Woolly Buggers. Most of the fish were small, but there were a couple of really good bow's in the mix. I can tell my old footage from new footage because I've replaced my old net that had a black rubber bag with a sweet new Nomad with a clear "ghost" net. Also, I've begun experimenting with the addition of music to my vid and this one feature's Drunken Prayer's "Ain't No Grave," and Los Lobo's "Hearts of Stone." I hope you enjoy...
Accidental GoPro self-portrait. If you've got one, you know where I'm coming from
Randy Berndt's Logo God has blessed me in so many ways. My beautiful wife, Laurie, allows me to fly-fish all over the country. Sometimes she accompanies me. But more often than not, due to a demanding work schedule, she is unable to go. I want to begin this post by thanking her for loving me enough to let me roam and scratch my itch whenever possible. My latest trip was a year removed from initial planning and originally was to be an extension of a two-week jaunt out west last summer with two of my closest friends, Randy and Jean Carr from Louisiana. We fished various trout rivers in Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana and were scheduled to swing over to the UP (Upper Peninsula), or “upstate” Michigan to fish with another dear friend, Randy Berndt. ...
Nice U.P. brookie on a dry fly Randy Berndt: THE U.P. Fly Angler Behind the bar at Upchuck's: Just when you thought you had run out of uses for old chainsaws. IT WAS THE CHAINSAW behind the bar that struck my attention. Inside Upchuck’s Bar in Kenton, Michigan, the décor consisted of mounted deer heads, hockey posters, and dark wood paneling straight from the 1960’s. The chainsaw was a vintage two-man McColloch large enough to be repurposed as an apparel rack. Hanging from the yellow and silver beast were t-shirts and fleece jackets with the official Upchuck’s logo. My fishing partner Randy Berndt and I were taking a break from an early-morning bushwhacking hike to a remote stream where we had pounded brookies on dry flies and worked up a thirst and an appetite. We pulled into Kenton and bellied up to the bar for beers and burgers. As we waited on the bartender to take our order, Randy saw me staring at the McColloch. ...
Every trip is a gift. The longer I live, the more I realize how precious each opportunity is. Each time I break down the fly rods and slide them into their tubes, I wonder when and where I'll assemble them again. These are thoughts I hadn't visited until recently. With age and experience come introspection and epiphany and mine is this: fishing as in other pursuits of passion is a privilege instead of a given. Never was this reality more pronounced than on my latest fly-fishing excursion to my "home waters" in Arkansas. I ventured north from Gulfport for a quick trip wedged between the end of Spring term and beginning of Summer term. I planned two days fishing and of course, was at the mercy of the weather and the fickle generation schedule of the USACE. Arkansas has had an unseasonably wet spring, even for them. The tailwater reservoirs (Bull Shoals, Norfork and Greers Ferry) were all in flood pool and the Spring River was blown out. The reports were not promisi...
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