Trophy Cat Fish, New Years Resolutions, and Amazing Gifts
So as most of you know, the newly born Brownliner twins have dominated the landscape of my life for the past three months leaving very little time for fishing. Much to my surprise I almost landed the big one at my company holiday white elephant gift exchange.
Sadly it was taken from me by one of the last people to open their gift and I ended up with a cake spatula that sings “Happy Birthday”…. just my luck.
So today being New Years, I figured there is no better time to put some of my angling/life resolutions for 2012 down in writing…
- I will learn to tie and fish one new pattern per month
- I will explore and fish six new areas or bodies of water
- I will make a point to “pay it forward” once per month and help another (friends or strangers… doesn’t matter!)
- I will take my two oldest son’s fishing with a level of patience that I have not given to them to date
- I will finally give up the ghost and acknowledge the fact that my wife does not and will not grasp the appeal of fly fishing!
- CW and I will navigate our local creek via pontoon from it’s beginning to it’s termination
- With pending new video equipment I will commit to more video content on this blog!
- I will figure out how to strike a balance between being a good father, good employee, and committed blogger/angler
- I will smile more
- I will wake up every day being prepared for the worst, hoping for the best, and soaking up each moment because you just never know when it will be your last
On a completely different note, I was once again completely blown away by CW. He showed up at my house with his lovely girlfriend at our home for a bit of holiday celebration. I had bought him a cheesy little wall sign for his fly tying man cave that I saw at Hobby Lobby. (Twins make for a tight budget!) He walks in with a huge honking box that weighed about 30lbs. He told me that he doesn’t believe in traditional “baby gifts” but rather adult gifts in celebration of baby arrivals. So I open the behemoth to find a beautiful fly tying cabinet engraved with my name. He said since I couldn’t be out on the river as much this year at least I could finally get all of my tying supplies out of tupperware containers and ziplock bags…. truly amazing gift. This is of course from a man that understands fishsturbation as much as I do!
Well it’s time to sit down with Mrs. Brownliner and watch a movie and try and get two future fly fisher kids to sleep.
Good Luck, Tight Lines, and have a happy and safe New Years!
MBL
Scratching The Itch and Other Musings on Fishsturbation
I have lost track of days. Days have turned to weeks and weeks have turned to months. For many, that is all they ever get. They hit the water every few months and that is the whole enchilada. Fishing is my happy place, my calm eye in the center of my life tornado. So to quit cold turkey regardless of how noble the reason (I love you Hannah and Zachary) is a bit of an out of body experience.
I have read old magazines, frequented my usual web communities, watched countless fly fishing re-runs on my DVR, and organized my gear twice. I can feel myself getting twitchy… anxious. Is there something wrong with me? Has the bug bit me that badly that I can’t spend a few months out of the water without all of the detox like side effects?
It doesn’t help knowing that a few of my friends have had some really solid days both chasing chrome up in Erie and trout across many of our streams. We have had some good rains and conditions are looking promising this year. The only thing not promising is my ability to even consider going anywhere just yet.
For now, I am going to have to settle for allowing my imagination to wander and my memories of many tight lines of the past year to get me through till December. Wish me luck… I’m going to need it!
Alive!
Hey folks… under a mountain of dirty diapers and sleep deprivation, I am alive. I have not forgotten about you but for now slinging flies has taken a back seat to feeding babies.
Hoping to hit the water soon with some good chatter to follow.
Thanks!
MBL
Mrs. Brownliner Lands the Best Double Ever!
Monday afternoon Mrs. Brownliner hooked, played, and landed the best double I have ever seen! They gave her a good fight but they were no match for her angling prowess. I wish I could tell you that I taught her everything she knows, but all I could do was stand and watch in awe….
Welcome to the world Hannah and Zachary! We will have you throwing tight loops before you know it. 
Summer’s Most Prolific Hatch?
Here in Pennsylvania we are blessed with some amazing hatches throughout the year. Many have pontificated over what they feel to be the most prolific hatch…. green drakes, white fly, hex….. none of them can hold a candle to what I experienced on the creek this week. With the rains ushering in some early fall weather the infamous yet highly unpublicized TOILET PAPER HATCH went off in full bloom this week!
One of the glorious if not aromatic bi-products of heavy rains is that many of our local waterways are the recipient of our excess sewage. Yes, yes, yes…. I know this is the eye opening equivalent of taking a black light into a rest stop hotel room. I would prefer to remain an ostrich as well but once you pull the covers down, you might as well just come to grips with the reality.
So as the TP hatch goes off many of our favorite brown line species allow their noses to leave the stream bottom and venture to the surface for some “dry fly” action. I have often thought of tying a “Charmin Special” for the occasion, but as it turns out one of the flies that occupies my box wherever I go fit’s the bill perfectly!
The venerable Blood Dot not only is deadly on taking carp as a nymph, but if you douse it in floatant, it is a perfect matching of the hatch for the Angel Soft Spinner. It is funny how if you are willing to experiment with your tactics you often learn things that you would never have known. I always thought of Blood Dot’s or other egg patterns as trout and steelhead food. Turns out it is the most consistent carp producer that CW or I have ever used.
So water conditions were a bit difficult for traditional sight fishing but I managed to find my favorite eddy to be chock full of big lips hoovering the surface. I only had a few hours to fish but the action was on and you could feel even the mid-sized carp shaking off their summer doldrums with renewed energy.
So next time you get the chance. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Get out and hit the TP hatch for some amazing dry fly carping!
Good Luck and Tight Lines,
MBL
I Seriously Need My Head Examined!
It was mid-afternoon and the sun was beating down relentlessly upon the water. What was I thinking? Well that is exactly what Mrs. Brownliner asked me as I came home sunburned and dehydrated. What kind of moron goes fishing when it is this hot out?????
I suppose this moron does! Now I would be a complete liar if I told you the fishing was prolific or that the fight in the fish I caught was top shelf. I think the dog days of summer pretty much left all of us uncomfortable and gasping for air. My motivation however is both specific and timely. You see, to put it in fly fishing terms, Mrs. Brownliner has a double on and she is just about to land both fish!
So life has taken some amazing turns. Any time between NOW and six weeks from now I will be driving the fish mobile mach 3 to the hospital with a woman in the passenger seat telling me where to turn and smacking me in the head the entire way. This means a tremendous joy for the Brownliner clan and for me personally. It also means that my fishing crack habit is going into detox for a bit until life settles back down. So for now, I am getting every minute on the water that I can. I don’t care if I have to fish downstream from a sewage outlet dumping little chunks of toilet paper into the creek! Wait a minute, I was fishing downstream from a sewage outlet dumping little chunks of toilet paper into the creek! My brain can still smell it to be honest… ughhh.
But I did bring some fish to hand! I’m hoping to get a few more hours on the water before two little brownliners make their way into the world. Wish me luck… I think I’m going to need it!
Potential World Record Cuda on the Fly Caught in Jamaica
I’m sorry… Shameful…. I know… but I couldn’t help myself…. Yes it is the potential world record for the SMALLEST Cuda ever caught on the fly!
I was going through my photo’s and found this from my honeymoon in Jamaica. I spent weeks telling my wife about the glory of salt water fly fishing. I showed her all of my specialized (code for “did you really need to buy that?”) salt water gear. She could hardly control her giggles when after a day of chucking lead the only thing I could scare up was this cuda that was smaller than most blue gills from the pond back home.
Now don’t get me wrong. I had a blast. I saw some amazing things that day. I have fond memories of the island foliage in full bloom.
I distinctly remember the visual distraction of Mrs. Brownliner in her bikini throwing off the timing of my casting. Yes dear… the tailing loop was all your fault!
But mostly I remember the amazing zen like feeling of being on the water with the tropical sun beating down on us as I scoured the shallows for fish with a huge grin on my face. These days, Mrs Brownliner is preparing the nest for two new arrivals at home so it might be a while before the flats will see my reflection again, but it never hurts to take a stroll down amnesia lane…. soon enough…. soon enough….
Good Luck and Tight Lines,
MBL
Childhood Lessons Pay Off on the Creek
When I was a young teen, my father took me on a fishing trip to Raystown Lake in central PA. The trip was a striper trip and we went with some cousins and their friends. The weather was beautiful and the lake looked to be in great shape. What we did not know at the time was that it was the year of locusts (17 year) and prolific does not even come close to describing what we saw. I shit you not… thousands and thousands of huge bugs dive bombing into the drink. They would buzz on the surface unable to escape until a fish came up and gulped them down or they drowned sinking to the bottom to a similar fate.
We threw everything in the box at the stripers with not even a strike on either boat. At this point in my life I had never picked up a fly rod so please excuse my trip back into a different era of fishing. As day two of no action wore on, my dad had to make a stop at the marina and use the facilities. I sat there watching the locusts buzzing on the surface near the dock. Just then a huge carp just came up and inhaled it. It looked like a Dyson moving across the surface sucking up every huge morsel in it’s path. A grin spread across my face.
My father was walking back up the dock as I was taking the minnow bucket out of our boat and dumping it into the lake… “What the hell are you doing????” he barked. I looked up at him and asked him if he wanted to beat water or go catch some fish. With that I took the empty minnow bucket and ran up the grass hand picking locusts off the tree’s and the shrubs and depositing them into my now empty minnow bucket. When the bucket was buzzing like a Hitachi Magic Wand, I made my way back to the boat. As we idled out I tied a floating jig head on to each of our spinning rods. My dad just looked at me asking if I was going to clue him in.
When we told our cousins what we were doing they scoffed at us….. “We didn’t come all the way to Raystown to catch CARP!” OK… we said… catch you later. My dad and I pulled off into a cove and hooked a locust onto the jig and let it drift. It didn’t take long. The V wakes coming at the bug here hysterical. It was like an outtake from the movie “Jaws”. I have no idea how many carp we caught that day, but it was a ton and we had a BLAST! By the way, my cousins went home fishless and unhappy.
So what’s the lesson you ask? No, it is not about the virtue of the much maligned carp. Nor is it about judging a trip by the number of fish you catch. The lesson I learned is that sometimes you have to take what the conditions are willing to yield.
Last night on the creek was a perfect example. The water was stained and the clouds had shut off any site fishing so chasing carp was a pretty tall order. After an hour I realized the futility of what I was doing and figured I’d change up. It turns out I had a pretty good night with some very eager and game smallies and a nice Sauger. Some of you might disagree but I try to keep multiple game plans in my pocket so regardless of what happens when you hit the water there is always fun to be had!
So… what would you have done? Continue to chase your intended quarry? Or go with what the conditions presented? Curious to know.
Good Luck and Tight Lines!
MBL
CW Goes Red Neck… Plays with Kitty
So I FINALLY got out on the creek yesterday. It had been close to a month since I had seen my favorite carp waters and was itching to get at it. I only had a few hours, but it didn’t matter to me. I was just happy to be on the water. I showed up at about 6:30PM and suited up as quickly as I could. I could see CW off in the distance landing a fish so I was optimistic right off the bat.
As he approached I doubled over laughing. Dude!!! That is about as “red neck” as it gets! He just grinned at me and said, “yeah… I know.”
So I might as well just spit it out now… I got totally skunked. Normally that really doesn’t bother me but after not seeing my creek for a month it did sting a bit. Especially after CW landed this beautiful Cat!
We fished into the darkness but the bite just shut off. The only thing that crossed our path were a pair of huge beavers. These are the times in life that I crave more “me” time. More time on the water… more time to reflect. More time to match wits with a worthy adversary. More time with good friends.
Life works in funny ways sometimes. Sometimes it gives you what you want, sometimes it gives you what you need. Sometimes it just tests you to see what your made of. Yeah… I got skunked. That should be the worst thing that happened to me
Good Luck and Tight Lines
MBL
Honorable Mention
Big thanks to John Hayes, the outdoor writer at the Post Gazette for shedding some light on fly fishing for carp!
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11226/1167075-358-0.stm
Hopefully our good friend Mr. Big Lips will get a bit of much deserved respect!
MBL
