Past Times

Iv'e had so much fun these past years fishing with friends and good people along the way, I was looking through some photos saved on my computer and decided to post some of the ones that are the most memorable hopefully you think back on some fun times spent on the water as well. Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

St Croix Wild River Custom

About a month ago I was presented with the opprotunity to create my own rod. I have tied my own flies, made my own leaders and such, so im pretty much self sufficient in that area, but I have never built a rod. My good friend Woody Banks from Indiana Angler had asked me if I wanted to try my hand at building a rod. Well needless to say I was hooked. Being a huge fan of John Nagy and reading the Steelhead Guide cover to cover numerous times, I decided I wanted to try a rod with a little more cushion. The rod that I currently have (pictured on my blogs headline) is the Cabelas 9'6" LST 7 WT. I have no complaints with it, it fishes tons of shot well, looks nice, casts great and has stood up to some abuse. But, I have one gripe about it, break offs with light tippets. I did get used to this, and a fast action has its advantage, but I decided to purchase the Wild River Noodle Blank in a 10'6" slow action and convert it into a fly rod. I used Pac-Bay components, a carbon fiber reel seat, full wells grip, and a medium sized fighting butt. I had the option to include a removeable 5 inch butt, but once I got to thinking most of the streams in Erie County take about 10 steps to walk across I decided to scrap that idea. I selected silver thread to wrap the guides with, a feature I think will look pretty sharp when im done, and it will be easily I.D.'d as my rod. I will be posting my progress further along as this goes, but heres some pictures so far of the rod.

January 6th Trip To Erie

Hey people who actually read this blog, I had a password issue that I just now got resolved with my blogger profile, thats why there hasn't been a post for awhile! But what use with all this rain we have been getting It's been hard to wet a line. I did manage to make it to Erie on the Sixth of January to find some pretty tough conditions. Not alot of open water and certainly not ideal conditions. When driving by 79 in the morning, I saw Elk Creek at the McKean exit completely locked up, it was about 40 degrees and raining so I knew in the back of my head what I was in for, but persisted with a positive outlook anyways. After jumping through a few hoops at PR west and getting my lisence, I headed East of the city to the Lawrence Park Golf Club. Found water with no visibility and ice chunks. Headed Further East to Harborcreek Township and fished the waterfall at 12. To my suprise a father and son leaving when I arrived left the whole fall on the west bank open. Given the water was a torrent I was able to hook up with and land one single fish on a size 10 Chartreuse Sucker Spawn, try as I might and diligent as always this was the only fish I would bank all day, not that I cared. I decided to move north of rt. 5 and fish some of runs that were now opened up for steelhead travel. Despite the amount of water that was in 12 at the time, it wasn't carrying as much H20 as the other creeks so the fish were a little easier to see. I had some well outfitted fellows who were centerpinning come down across from me and join in the fishing, no big deal I love fishing/conversating with other people. But these fellows seemed to be on the warpath on getting thier rod some bending action, and it became a sort of competition. I however don't blame them or fault them, the conditions were that tough that to even see an outline of a fish was a blessing this day, being that I already caught one I figured these guys wasted just as much money as I did on $3.19 a gallon gas and didn't want to get skunked. I took a walk downstream for just a glance. People lined up at the wall and below the old snag. Since 12 is so hit or miss I decided to take a drive out to 20 Mile.
What scenery. If you have ever explored this wonderful Gem then you know what I'm talking about. So I arrive at the hole that I want to fish to find pristine mint green water with some visibility, snow covered pines with glistening sun, picture perfect, only one problem, it's locked up. By this point im determined. I find a forked stick and get to stompin'. Well, the craziest thing that has ever happened to me in Erie County happened. I sent a Pangea sized chunk of ice down the stream, which careened into and broke more ice, and I swear triggered a chain reaction. Unless it was just a coincidence, the stream began to roar, got brown, and began to kick up debris like crazy. I even saw a tree come down. There were ice chunks floating down the stream by the millions, and I swear 20 mile went up 10 inches in 5 minutes no exaggeration. It looked like a tidal wave roaring down around the bend I was fishing. Packed it up and headed to 16 mile. By this time It was around Lunch. I was hoping for a better outlook and parked at the second fall area only to be dissapointed again. The water was a brown churn, tried a couple desperation casts in some slack water areas around the banks, but it was no use. I knew that I was just about defeated. Without giving up totally, I decided to head West to a small feeder trib that dumps into a larger one. Well, even that was blown out and by that time around 2:00 the main trib was a raging torrent. I packed it up and went the long way home. Defeated, but not skunked! Oh well, you have to take the good with the bad. To even be out enjoying the day was good enough for me, even If I didn't catch anything. Next time.