The Rollercoaster of Rivers

I call it a rollercoaster for the rise and fall on the river gauges. We haven't had a level flow in almost two months. There is something disheartening about getting super excited about being on the water 2 weeks straight, getting one day in and then it rained again. I have to admit, I may have lost my mind a few times in there. The house almost floated away, had to wear waders to check the mail, tied a lot of flies, drank a few beers, maybe some Jack, but that’s all over now (I hope). We are back in action.

This high and un fishable summer could have been a blessing in disguise. There are times in life when you forget what you have, when you don't realize how much you truly love something, or how much you actually love what you do, until it is taken from you. Not being able to guide for almost 6 weeks, made me realize how much I do love it, it re sparked the flame I felt I was losing.

But enough about the sad mind loosing summer we just had, lets enjoy what we have left and welcome fall with open arms.

Time to Hit the Reset Button

I was sitting on the drift boat last week with Andy and Austen, we were about to partake in our first smallmouth trip of the season. We had the deck stacked against us with high water, winter water temps, and 30mph winds, but we didn't care. It wasn't long after fishing the first hole with tubes, live minnows, and of course flies, that we realized it wasn't summer yet.

So with no fish at this point, we were all just talking about life and other random thoughts, when Andy started giving me crap about not writing my blog anymore. I responded with a few excuses about life, lack of time, and no motivation. That's when I decided to make a bet with Andy, "if we catch fish today, I'll blog about it".
Andy said "deal", Austen just kept fishing, and I picked up the fly rod and went to work.

They managed to get fish on tubes sporadically through the day, but I was hard headed and stuck with the fly rod and spent most of the day fishless. About 10 mins before we called it because of wind and lack of all around comfort, we slid down into an eddy where the water was all but motionless and I finally went tight to a solid smallmouth...

So Andy won, and here is my blog post.