Breaking Bad....

  Hello all and thanks for checking in. It’s been a few weeks since my last write up and with people asking me why the break, the answer that keeps running through my mind is “Breaking Bad”. As most of our readers know, Cat and I have a tv schedule set out for most nights. With the fall season ending in early December we have a hard time finding much to watch. Now a few weeks ago and only the second time in the last 22 years, I actually needed and used a sick day from work. I didn’t know of any movies that looked like they would be interesting to watch so I started looking through my sons Netflix account. Nothing looked good and then I found a title that I had heard of but had never seen or knew anything about. I watched the pilot episode of Breaking Bad and was just intrigued enough to keep going. My original thought was “relativism in the real world”. The first episode gave me conflicting emotions about each character in the show, moments of “like” and moments of “slight annoyance”. Now the great thing, or bad thing depending on your perspective about Netflix is there are no commercials and you don’t have to wait a week or more between episodes. I was in and out of consciousness all day and by the time I began feeling better that evening I realized that I had seen 8 episodes. My emotions at this time had pretty much changed; I kept finding myself absolutely disgusted with every single character and wanted to jump into the show itself and strangle everyone in the show. It was a little like my first marriage; pulling out my hair I would be screaming “Why can’t you people pull your heads out of your collective tails. As the next week and a half went by my addictive personality was screaming  for another episode and it seemed that every free second found me at my computer or tv watching; and then it was over. A week and a half and I watched 57 episodes; I was left with only the emptiness of what could have been.

  So as our regular Spring tv shows began we found it a little difficult to watch, I had forgotten how many commercials they actually run on tv. The Mentalist is my fave and it seemed every few minutes I had to jump up and head into the other room in order to not watch another commercial. I don’t want a Papa John’s pizza, a new Toyota, and my "you know what" functions perfectly, I just want to watch the show! To top things off, as the show finished and we were anxiously waiting for previews for the next week, they said they would be back in two weeks. SAD FACE….

  So why am I talking about “Breaking Bad”, November and early December felt like Breaking Bad. The fishing was excellent and in your face exhilarating, not so much now. I look at January as a great time to rest my wrist and my ever aging body, even though my important parts still work fine...hehe. The shows are still good but the commercials are a little like the crowds on the river and the weeks between shows feel a little like the time between strikes. I’m still watching but I find myself longing for a lost episode or season of Breaking Bad.

 Over the last few weeks we have been out a few times with results being very Januaryish. And yes my spell check is telling me that is not a real word. Fish seem to be lying low for most of the day and sneaking in and out of feeding lanes quickly throughout the days. We have had a lot of frustrated anglers in the shop lately angry with the fact the fishing is so slow, shop talk translated for skunked. Guides trips have all caught fish, but even we professionals find ourselves frustrated. As a guide, when a client makes a good cast and an excellent presentation during November, more often than not it produces a strike, right now it may take several perfect drifts before the strike. Fish can be had, it just seems those darn commercials are getting in the way.

  As I look into the future I look to the past to see what the river and the “tele” have prepared for us. Fishing should continue to be spotty and at times good into mid February. Mid-February should see the bows stage and then begin moving to beds and fish will begin feeding a little stronger in between reproducing. Late March and April BWO’s should bring our fishing season to the ever popular cliffhanger climax. As for tv, whatevs…Get out and fish and enjoy every second of it, whether it’s on fire or just plain bad. A few pics from the weekend trips and our fish, As always thanks for reading, Connell, Cat, Winston, Walter White and The Drift Fly Shop…..

 

Teleporting, The New Way To Fly Fish.....

  So the other day I was scanning my Facebook wall and I came across this Amazing video. The video was a four lane road and a Delivery truck and a rickshaw nearly colliding. As they slow down the video it seems that just before the collision, some sort of super human flashed in front of the rickshaw and moved it to the side of the road. The driver of the truck locks his breaks and jumps out to see the surely destroyed rickshaw, the rickshaw and driver had been magically moved to safety. The title talks of teleportation and or an angel and the video finishes off by the superhuman walking off. When showing the video to Cat on Youtube, we saw to the side of several explanations of how it was a hoax. Personally we didn’t care if it was a hoax or not it was just really heart lifting.

 So if you have followed this blog over the years you will also note that my stories always are followed by our own personal experiences. Now I’m not going to tell you that we have seen anything quite like this but we did have to laugh about the near teleporting fly fisherman we saw on New Year’s Day. As most of our readers know, Cat and I try to stay off the river on the really crowded days. Unfortunately, after watching the first half of the Husker game, I was a little worried that my heart would not take another second half that resembled the last two years. Cat keeps telling me that even though she has had plenty of offers to take care of her, she really wants me to keep that job for quite a while. We got to Valco at just after noon and we noticed that no one was in the pumphouse hole. We headed down and across and when we looked up we saw someone had run down in the middle so no one else could fish any of the runs in that area. We headed up to the Money hole; the first half hour was productive but not great. Biggest fish to the net was a 15inch bow. The area really turned off and so we decided to move up river, when we got above Picnic Rock we could see that that area was pretty crowded so we headed back down. We really weren’t hooking anything and Cat noticed that the Pumphouse was empty again. Cat grabbed Winston and started down but stopped half way when we saw the Teleporter was back in the middle. We were just trying to enjoy the day so at that point we didn’t really realize what the person was doing. Cat moved back up by me and after fishing a few more minutes and getting the call that my Heart attack Huskers had actually won the game we decided we were ready to head home. Walking down we saw that the Pumphouse was once again empty so I told Cat I wanted to hit the run just a few casts before we took off. About the time we neared a guy came hustling off the bank and back into the run. Cat and I could not help but laugh the whole way home.

  Now for the conditions part of this blog; The River is crowded but fish can still be had. In the two hours on the water we saw a total of three midges. Three, not three hatches, bugs hatching almost always make it easier to fly fish. The key right now is to locate where the fish are and get whatever in front of their faces. Remember, this is January, enjoy your time on the river and don’t get caught up with your numbers or sizes and if you have to teleport your way into a run you’re taking yourself way too serious. Bugs of choice are Truebloods, Ninjas, J-Bombs and Roe…As always, thanks for reading, Connell, Cat, Winston and The Drift Fly Shop….