November at Stone Mountain

   Went up to Stone Mountain for some fall trout fishing. The weather was absolutely gorgeous with the temperature near 80 degrees. Wednesday the 2nd started off a little slow with a few rises here and there, then near two o'clock the trout started to to get a little hungry and I was into five fish one after the other. One fish in particular was very interesting, it was striking in coloration and had a "hooked" jaw, like a spawning salmon. Jerry, fishing mostly below the surface wasn't doing well until later in the day, when he caught two fish and missed a few.  Dinner as usual spaghetti, with meat sauce and crashing exhausted 'til morning. Thursday started off a little cloudy, but still really mild for 3rd of November. We continued fishing until about 2:00 then started for home. We were able to get gas pretty quickly, and the drive was all in daylight,

     This  photo is not the best shot, of this fish. He was about 12 " in length and had striking coloration, you can see the brightness on his belly. The one thing I never saw before fishing this river was the hooked jaw on this Brookie.

Halloween celebrants are in the front yard.

These characters have moved from the back yard to the front. They are really for their big night.

First Fall Fly Fishing in Stone Mountain.

13 October 16   We arrived at the Church Pool after 10:00AM the visible trout were holding to the bottom totally disinterested in our offerings. After awhile we headed for the "Magic Pool". I planted myself just downstream from to footbridge. It took three casts to straighten things out and hook into a nice trout. Micheal's rod, which is longer than my old rod casted beautifully. The trout had hit the dropper, a size 22 Griffin's Gnat and slipped off the hook. From that point on the trout were very cooperative. Without hardly moving my position I caught 11 beautiful Browns. I tried to film them being caught and of course released. Jerry was fishing a Woolly-Bugger and a Copper John, but wasn't doing that well. The weather was grand and we fished all the afternoon. Had the usual spaghetti dinner and fell asleep without a thought about T.V. Next morning, 14Oct16, after coffee and cereal we got back to the river. Jerry picked up two nice fish near the pool with the big rock near the end of the park road. All in all, it was a great trip, though starting out for home a little late forced driving in the dark and catching the rush hour traffic.

A fine fly rod, a gift of her brother's fly rod.

My original fly rod was damaged in an accident with a car door. About 10" was broken off the tip. A dear friend offered me her brother's fly rod. When I first started to withdraw the rod from it's protective sleeve, I was surprised to see the same winding as on my broken rod. Like a twin 'though longer. When I finally got a chance to use it in Stone Mountain it casted  beautifully... What a wonderful gift.

The Cold Weather is Setting in

My studio/garage is pretty cold these days, 'though I'm able to do short periods of time before it becomes uncomfortable. I've been working out a method of carving huge mushrooms. I've got plenty of logs that will be useful in this project. Here I've carved the caps on both ends of the log, just need to cut it in half for two mushrooms

Getting ready for a Spring show

I've been working on some pieces for the open studio tour at Fearrington in the Spring. So far I've completed work on several Spotted Sandpipers, a couple of Curlews, and two Owls. I'm going to get to work on some over sized mushrooms.