This year's Santas

    These guys take a lot of time to carve, paint and finally to put the ribbons on. It took while to get in the swing of carving these guys, but it all came back pretty quickly. As usual the slivers of wood were all over the place by the time I finished.

 

Halloween is near

   These guys have wandered from the back yard to the front in anticipation of frightening someone. So far they haven't frightened anyone.

October 3rd on the Roaring River

    The river was stocked yesterday. It seems that the pools close to the road get the fish. When  you look at the "Church Pool" it's loaded with fish. Seems to be that way up and down the river, high concentrations in a few pools, not spread over a section. These fish were not very interest in any offerings. fishing was difficult to say the least. Two days fishing and only two fish caught. Still, the weather was delightful and it was a joy to be there.

A new net

  After going without a fish for a long stretch of the Roaring River. I noticed the net magnetically attached to my vest was missing. After back tracking in search of it, I gave up and acknowledged I lost it. Since I built it myself, I decided to construct another one.

Soaking some strips of hickory and then bending and clamping them to shape on a form. The final step was adding a mesh bag for the net.

Fishing The Magic Pool

The "Magic Pool" has a history of yielding some very nice fish. A deep shaded pool flowing quietly has been known to explode with a frantic trout trying to avoid the net.

A Great Blue and a Great Fisherman

I was able to move this image from my old web album into my files folder and then insert it into the posting. Funny I get a little confused with recognizing that this is the picture I wanted. I carved the Great Blue in 1996. This guy is a supurbe fisherman as well as one of my best carvings.

Possibility of getting out to Cherokee

This has been a difficult season to fit in another trip to Stone Mountain, things keep popping up, from Dr. appointments to other trips to fill family obligations. If it works out that I won't be able to get away for a few days, I'm going to try to master getting a fishing video into this blog. This will entail learning how to navigate the video editor in YouTube. Nice project for me, I have started to enter clips (upload) for use in constructing a film. Have worked out the addition of titles and text. Haven't figured out adding a sound track yet. They say, If you can't fish, you tie flies, build rods, or fool around with   things related to dominating trout. Over the years the trout have had the upper hand.

Last trip before the June opening of the stream to taking fish.

    The day started with rain and was predicted to continue for the rest of the day. By 11:00AM we were in the water at the Church Pool and the weather started to get nicer. I was able to get into two trout pretty quickly, a Griffith's Gnat and a small Adams did the trick. Jerry was using a Woolly Bugger and was getting into fish after fish, seemed like they were making it up to him for not cooperating on our last visit to their pool. Early on I was trying to film my bringing a fish to the net when my camera slipped out of my pocket and into the drink. This happened once before and stopped the recording cold. A day in a bag of rice got the camera working again but not until we returned home. The river was stocked yesterday and the fishing was spectacular today. Dinner in Sparta, back to High Meadow Inn, slept soundly with dreams of trout franticly trying to escape the net.
Really a fabulous trip and sort of made up for not getting a chance to come here more often this Spring.

First Trip This Spring, 9th March

This is the first trip this Spring. High Meadow Inn and Shatley springs not opened yet, so we stayed at the Elk Inn.When we got to the river it was crowded with fishermen. Started at the Church Pool, which was full of trout though they seemed totally uninterested in our offerings. Griffith's Gnat takes a nice fish. Hard day's fishing really working with little result, just a fish here and there. Dinner in town at KFC, crashed for night, breakfast was great in town, biscuits and gravy, eggs and bacon, then back to the river for some serious fishing. Trout were scarce this morning, by 2:00 PM we were really to head home.

Getting Ready For The Coming Trout Season.

    The weather has been so very nice, although it's still January my mind has wandered to trout fishing. I started to check out my gear and decided to add to my fly collection, particularly in the midge department. I found some videos on YouTube that talked about midges being on the trout's menu even in the winter months. I started tying some Griffith Gnats, some beatles, A few Adams' and a few Lady Heathers. This sort of expanded to ordering a 6 wt. double taper floating line and some other things from the web.  Tying the small flies was a problem prior to watching that YouTube video, I used to whip finish the head of the fly and try to carefully use head cement on the knot trying to be careful and not block the fly eye with head cement. The gentleman in the instructional video said that he whip finished the head twice firmly binding the fly and not needing head cement. I've been doing just that and feel confident that that will be more than sufficient.