Spring

Spring

Harps | Friday, 12 June 2015

It's been a while since I've written...

it's been a while since I've had any desire to spend any more time then necessary in front of a computer. Between work and the pressure to be involved in social media, I've lost my appetite for electronic do-hickeys. I thought I lost my interest in fishing for a while too... but I've fixed that!

Although it seems that the fishing trips are a little farther between, the need is coming back. There's never enough fishing.

In April, it was a big trip down to Montana. A great couple of floats, fish on dries for the entire time - some rewarding ones from very technical tricky (for me) casts, too much beer, and frost and sunburn. Skwala's were active and early, and seen in places new to me.
skawala

May saw lakes start to produce, with fat pike cruising the edge of weed beds, aggressively charging movement on the wakes on the surface. June, the pike are still active, and with the poor snowpack and rain, the rivers are quite low and fishable.

Things picked up in the end of May, my wife and I have dusted off the paddleboards and scouted for pike and floated a 20km stretch of a local river.
pike

I also spent some time in a helicopter, scouting habitat on familiar waters.
heli

All in all, despite still having dificulties with conflicts of interest at work and a general lack of work, things are looking interesting. This fall, I will go back to school for a Masters Degree in a Fisheries related topic and this weekend I am taking a course in blacksmithing. Pyko gave me some advice a few years ago regarding the need to feel accomplishment through working with your hands. He pointed me to a book, Shop Class as Soulcraft. I did think that tying flies and providing advice would be enough, but without the tangible feel of success, a project completed something built, there was a void. Maybe blacksmithing will fill it, maybe I just need more time on the edge of a river. Eitherway, I plan on filling the void this summer. And really, how bad can things be when there are so many great rivers to fish?

I'll be back on the occasional Friday, filling in when Ray is absent.

Until next time,
Harps