A pack of Feral Brittanys

I am not sure how my brother managed to get off our frozen bay on Shag lake with this pack of killers closing in, but some how, he did. Perhaps he rubbed their bellies. We'll probably never know.

Fall cast and blast IV

Today I did morning and evening blast and no cast as we really did have to do the winterizing.

Some landscapes with gun and dog. My Brother took these so no claim as to composition or real pic value.




Some shotgun pron.


and no boyds but me & and the dog had a good time.

The one on the top is my grandfather's Winchester 12 gauge model 1897 total take down made in 1913.The one on the bottom is my uncle's 1985 Montie Ward WesternField 20 gauge. This is the same Winchester as above with two ducks and my grandfather in 1958.


No woodcock or grouse were harmed in the production of this blog post.

Fall cast and blast II

Day 2 results much similar to Day 1. Grouse flushed with none accidently flying into the direction that the birdshot was flying. The day was warm and the dog got a work out. Here he is lying down on the ground drinking from his bowl refusing to make eye contact with me because he is so disappointed in one half of the team.


As usual the cast portion of the day went much better.





With no grouses to bring home I took a couple of trout for the old man back at the cabin.


There are essential vitamins and nutrients in fresh caught brook trout that are very beneficial for 86 yr olds.

@shag

Bird dog and stinky UP muck

It's called happiness in Griff's world

grif

hunting

GUEST POST: MIGHTY GRYFF and his Master

Catch up post #3: Posted on Aug 2 but fished on July 5.

This comes from George Cleveland, Uber moderator and insect overlord at the Wisconsin Fly Fishing Message Board . After many postings about the Prairie River during the regs change fight last spring, I finally had the opportunity to fish the river, my first, and G.C. made the time to guide me along the ex-special regs water. This is his post about our trip:

By George Cleveland

The interwebs are a strange social landscape. They give one the perfect disguise, enabling a person to alter their persona to whatever template they may desire. So it is always interesting to meet someone with whom you have only communicated in the past via message board postings and IMs.

Hdw IMed me late last week and wondered if we could do a little fishing Saturday evening. He was going to be in our area picking up his Brittany "Gryffindor" from a trainer. Gryff had been attending Bird Camp while Harlan and his family did the Sound of Music tour in the Alps. A couple text messages led to a scratchy cell phone call from Gilman, Wisconsin. In an hour or so I knew I'd be meeting hdw in the flesh. And sure enough, with a little help from his GPS, the Volvo with Illinois plates was soon pulling up to the curb in front of our neighbors house.

The guy who unfolded himself from the Swedish tank was taller and a bit grayer than I expected. (As a writer he comes across as a younger man.) But there was an air that came from him that I can only describe as "authenticity" and made me comfortable in an unusually short time for an old curmudgeonly Norwegian such as myself. My estimation of him grew as I watched him interact with his dog, Gryff and later with my son and my wife. Add to that the fact that he didn't noticeably act disgusted by the chaos that exemplifies what could laughably be called "housekeeping" in the Cleveland shack and he attained the vaunted "O.K. By Me" status, in my mind.

The next couple of hours were spent in comfortable conversation which at times approached the subject of the evening's fishing. It had been in the 80s all that day and I was dubious about the River's temperature. Trying to steer him towards the bass that live in the Wisconsin instead, hdw averred that he really wasn't that enthralled with smallmouth. So we decided to try some of the cooler waters that flow through sections of the late, lamented Special Regs section. After transferring his equipage from his Volvo to the Taurus we made our way up the highway to the access point.

It wasn't until almost 7:30 that we found ourselves be-wadered and be-rodded and standing in the reassuringly [b]cold[/b] water of the upper River. Before we even had a chance to feed enough line from our reels to fish a small riseform spread beneath the tag alders opposite us. Harlan had tied on a chunky looking soft hackle and he cast it to the fish. But on the second cast he snagged an over hanging willow behind us. At his urging I fished to the rises with my Pass Lake and after 4 or 5 casts, hooked and landed the small brookie that had been making them.





We continued upstream. After missing a few fish with his soft hackle , Harlan changed to a Goddard Caddis. There were sporadically rising fish scattered through a thigh deep, timbered section. Including one that was feeding just off an Entish finger of deadwood pointing out into the current.









The Goddard seemed to elicit more solid takes and the Pass Lake did its usual thing, so we played trade-a-fish while we went upstream. First Harlan would catch a fish and then I'd step up and take one. The only break in the pattern was when one of us would tangle with an alder and then the other would cast to the trout while the other fiddled with his tackle.

As dusk deepened we came to a long deepish run that had been HIed decades before. The fish were still rising but both Harlan and I found ourselves missing more fish than we were hooking. Both of us struggled with hook eyes and tippet held up against the fading sky as we fumbled to change flies. Harlan finally got his attached, a big Stimulator, and flipped it to a fish that had started feeding a rod length away.

While the take wasn't splashy the commotion that followed the hooking was. H's rod, a 4 weight built on a Sage LL blank, formed an almost perfect arch as the fish fought first up and then down the stream. I cautiously tried to back away and not spook the fish. After a few minutes Harlan led the trout to his net. The 14" brook trout lay quietly long enough for me to take a quick pic and then Harlan snipped the tippet, leaving the deeply embedded fly in place and returning the chunky trout to the River. Then it was grins all around.



It was near dark now so we turned about and fished down through the water below toward the car. I had managed to get a bushy Catskill dry on my leader and other than a few taps had not had any real luck with it. But near the middle of the timbered, deep run my twitched fly brought a solid hit and after a short fight the 12" brookie was being photographed like a Hollywood starlet. (I wonder if brook trout get those little purple spots on their retinas from camera flashes.)







We continued downstream, hearing rises back in the log jams from fish that would never be caught. Shortly after joking with H that he needed a 20" brookie next, Harlan's fly was engulfed by a shockingly large rise. He failed to connect solidly but the inferred size of the fish made any joking reference to a 20" brook trout seem less absurd.

Griffendor's first spring

Its mertensia virginica time in the floodplains of the North Branch of the Chicago River.


Positively otherworldy for the couple of days that they bloom.

Griff gets a look at the bluebells.


And a splash in the river.


Inside the city limits ...


View Larger Map

The pup, a cork handle, and my local fly shop

Last August the pup was four months old. I kept him him gated on the deck while we at the place in th U.P. One evening coming in from the lake after doing some popping for bluegills I brought the rod up on the deck to clean it, set it down and turned away for 30 seconds to get a drink and in that time the damage was done. The all cork reel seat handle on my custom built out Sage LL 9 ft 4 wt was chewed. I'm not a gear collection guy. The rod was one of two that I have and fish. A bit irritiating and mildly problematic.

4 month old Grif and the damage done

The rod had been originally been built out by Eric at Coren's Rod Reel. Coren's is my neighborhood fly shop.

The store

Eric is really skilled at fixing any fishing equipment and has the shop nicely appointed with equipment, predominantly fly stuff. So I toyed with the idea of doing something about it myself. Cork Filler ? Sand it down ? Finally decided to take it back to Eric and show him the damage to his handiwork. He took a quick look, and said " ah - no problem. I''ll take this section of the handle out, split three cork rings, cement them back in, shape the handle, no problem."

And it turned out just like that.

The repaired grip on my Sage LL 9 ft 4 wt

The man himself ...

Need a fly shop on the North Side of Chicago ? A rod or reel repair ?

Corens Rod & Reel Service

6001 N Nina Ave
Chicago, IL 60631-2411
Phone: (773) 631-5202

2024/1494

So I've been ruminating about the vote last week. I was thinking about writing this and kept getting stopped looking for something better in it all and figured I'd just post the picks and bag the analysis as the best I could come up with is, its all about the numbers. These are from tax day April 15 2008.

I put the gear and the dog in the car before I drove up to Rock County to vote last Monday night but even though I was not planned to fish Tuesday the plans seemed to happen anyway. I was pretty sure that the vote was a lost cause, but nothing seems to attract me like a fight for a lost cause especially when its right. I heard a folksy and eloquent defense of the regs at the Janesville Moose Lodge and then voted and drove on to a cheap hotel on hway 18 in the SW. I knew that the place had wireless so I brought my compy only to find the laptop crapped out sometime during the drive. I ended up at dawn in the cold on one river. By about mid morning it had warmed up and I tagged a few.






It was the first 68 degree day of the year and the first caddis fly I had seen and the first trout on a dry caddis fly of 2008.




There was still some small snow patches on the north side of the hills.



At this point I didn't know that the vote had carried. I was just out enjoying the day, and the streams and the dog and the trouts.





Some recent habitat improvement that came through the floods last summer just fine.








The votes on the Prarie regs last lost year by a little less than 500 votes, they carried this year by a little more than 500 votes. Its all about the numbers.

The recap of the day

Bryan procured 3 chukar and 3 cock pheasant for us to work with Grif.


We placed 1, on the first run. Bryan is dizzying it before we plant it for the dog.



11 month old Grif did great, he found 6 out of 6. One Chukar would not fly upon being flushed and Grif dispatched him himself. One pheasant was wounded with the shotand dropped and could not fly and Grif chased him for a quite a while. The last bird he locked on point and waited for us to get close for well over a minute before he flushed. He knows what bird hunting is now.



The meat bucket; a pile of pheasant and chukar in the dutch oven waiting about to get roasted.