Simple Pleasures

At the FFF Southeastern Rally last year the always thoughtful Shirley raised her hand repeatedly during their live auction to purchase a guided trip on the Soque River in north Georgia. Ever since moving to the southeast I have seen the pictures and read the stories of the monster trout that are found there, so I was naturally thrilled with her good sense and her persistence to win the thing. The package she won was donated to the auction by Charles Henderson of Southern Sweetwater Anglers, and it was a half day trip for two anglers on Charles' trophy section of the famed river.

It was a no-brainer that this trip was going to be son-in-law Chad's birthday present, and since his birthday back in September, we have anticipated heading into those beautiful north Georgia mountains to meet up with a toothy, hook-jawed rainbow or two. We had a year to redeem it and the year was ending on Memorial Day, so what better way to spend Mother's Day weekend than packing up our families - mothers included, of course - and heading for the river?

A few nights before leaving I spoke to Charles about the river conditions and to pick his brain a little on what we could expect. He said if we were lucky we might get some top-water action with hopper patterns and he recommended nothing smaller than 5 weights and 4x tippets. I'm likin' it already.

When we arrived at his lease - just a stones throw from the Batesville General Store - I was a little surprised at the size of the water. This so-called "river" would have barely qualified as an Ozarks "crick," but it was wild and beautiful, crystal clear and as fishy lookin' as any water, anywhere. Charles and Chad headed downstream and I headed up. I hadn't been in the water but a few minutes and I noticed a trout rising no more than a good double-haul upstream of where I entered the water. As the place was too canopied for a double-haul, and I can't do one on a spacious football field anyway, I went into my excuse of a stealth mode and headed up to his position.

My dry landed perfectly, drifted over his position - and nothing happened. After three more reasonable casts I reeled in to change patterns, and as if to mock me, the trout rose two more times while I was fumbling through my fly box. Over the next little while I tried a couple of more patterns to no avail and finally conceded defeat. I gave him a wide berth and headed upstream with the intention of fishing my way back down to him with a wet. Hugging the far bank, I moved about fifty yards up and sat down on a mid-stream rock to take in the beauty and allow the fish to settle back in.

As any painter would know, to make "green" you mix up a bit of blue and a bit of yellow. The shades of green that you can create are virtually endless, and thanks to an early spring and ample rains, they were all on display on this overcast late May morning. But for the patter of a light rain and the ocassional crow calling out to his brethern, I was surrounded by the beauty and the silence that we all cherish when on a trout stream. That is, until the dogs started howling. Distant at first, the ruckus was becoming louder, closer, and more frantic as the hounds chased what was surely a 300 pound black bear towards my little slice of peaceful paradise.

Of course it was a bear! What else could rile up every dog in the county? The more I thought about it, the surer I was, and the larger the bear became. I was imagining the headline . . . "Headless North Carolina angler found floating in north Georgia trout stream." Well, I wasn't going to sit on that rock and let him have me. No sir, if I'm going to be attacked by a bear I'm going to be fishing when it happens.

As the dogs and the bear changed course at the last minute and faded off into the distance from whence they came, I was back in position to make a presentable drift with the black Woolly to my real nemesis, and sure enough, on the first swing through his lair he was on! After a few moments I brought him alongside, slipped my forceps around the Bugger and released him back to the river. Though certainly not of local bragging size, the little 12 incher was beautiful. I continued on downstream and had a few more hits, but other than seeing the flash of one nice fish - one very nice fish - the lunkers of the Soque had eluded me. So be it. My back was hurting and I headed back to the truck about an hour earlier than planned.

Earlier that morning when we arrived at the parking spot, in a silly mood for sure, I asked Charles if there really were huge trout in the little pond that adjoined our parking area. With a raised eyebrow and a smirk he said, "Sure Alan. Go have a go at 'em. Chad and I are going over here," as he pointed towards the river.

Well, after stretching out on the picnic table for a while I couldn't resist the temptation of the pond. A few weeks ago at the Virginia Fly Fishing Festival I got to know one Mr. Steve Vorkapich, the creator of the Float Master strike indicators. I had met Steve a few years earlier, but other than exchanging pleasantries when our paths crossed at various fly fishing shows, we really didn't know each other. That was my loss. Steve is without doubt one of the nicest guys I know, and spending some time with him at The Speckled Trout B&B in Waynesboro was a highlight of our trip north. Before parting ways at the festival I convinced Steve that we needed to do some product swapping. (For the uninitiated, Sunday afternoons at most fly fishing shows see frantic activity among the vendors as they wheel and deal to carry home items that they've admired all through the weekend but were to cheap to buy.) I left with Steve's strike indicator selection and he left with a few of my prints.

So here I was on a premier southern trout stream, rigging up one of Steve's indicators with plans to try them out on the little pond's bream population. I selected a small yellow one and placed it about a foot above a brown Girdle Bug. Wham! The minute the rig hit the water it disappeared, and shortly thereafter I had in my hand a pretty little bluegill. I won't try to convince you that every cast had the same result, but I will tell you that over the next hour I landed at least three dozen of the little guy's neighbors, including the nice one shown here.

I found the Float Master easy to cast and wonderfully easy to re-position for different depths. And when I finally had enough and broke my gear down, I saw not a single kink in the line from its usage.

They say that fly fishing soothes the soul. They say that it's not just about catching fish - it's about the experience. They say that standing in a clearwater trout stream and soaking in Creation is good for you and your relationship to it's Creator. All true. Chad and I got to do all of that on Saturday. I got to do that before hiking back to the truck and the pond, but I sure am glad that I got to experience the simple pleasure of landing a mess of bluegills too.

Smiley

Another new one for the VA Festival. 12" x 24"

The Drift

It could have been a trout - more likely, the fading light playing tricks through the leaves. Evenings like this mess with the mind.

I was awake before the alarm went off. A normal occurrence these days. Used to be that I would lie awake on the “nights before” imagining the fish I would catch. Half afraid that I’d miss the alarm and oversleep, I’d play fish after fish until nothingness overtook me, then with the alarm sounding I’d rise from bed in a manner unknown on days that promised nothing but work. Now, in my sixties, sleep still comes slowly. But for different and unexciting reasons. Yes, I’ll play a few trout before it comes, but only to pass the time until it does. I miss those nights of eight hours like I miss so many other things that age brings our way.

I know this place well and my father knew it well before me. He was raised within an hour of the place and he had the good sense never to move far from it. I wasn’t so lucky. Careers can be cruel like that. Tonight I’m back, and as I approach the pool I’m swept away with memories. Dad used to say that there was a big brown back under the trees at the far bank. He said he would never see him during the day, but in the twilight, occasionally, if the river was really still, he might see his nose appear from the rock, waiting for the darkness that big browns are fond of. He said if I can get the drift just right I might catch him one day.

It’s getting darker.

Greenback Cutthroat

A few posts back I mentioned that I am revisiting the paint brush, and since then I have been burnin' the midnight oil, as they say, to complete a few new pieces to show at the upcoming Virginia Fly Fishing Festival. Well, here's one of them. I haven't taken the time to title them, just as I haven't taken the time to plant all the flowers that Miss Shirley has been buying to spruce up the yard. Sorry dear.

My plate is rather full at the momment. This weekend I'll be presenting the details of the Veterans Service Program to the attendees of the Trout Unlimited Southeatern Conference, and immediately after the conference I'll be headed to Harman's Northfork Cottages up in West Virginia to shoot a video with Curtis Fleming from Fly Rod Chronicles, followed at the end of that week with the festival in Waynesboro. Then the week after that I'll be back to Virginia for the infamous Project Healing Waters 2Fly Tournament. It's a wonder that I get anything done!

I think that the Greenback Cutthroat, which this "skin" illustration represents, is just about the prettiest thing that our God has ever created (my apologies to Miss Shirley again), and it was done with acrylics on a 5 x 7 inch canvas. Hope you all like it....Prints are available!

Ft. Jackson Warrior Transition Unit, After Action Report

My friend Bobby Sutton from the Saluda River TU chapter in Columbia, South Carolina has filed the following AAR. Way to go Bobby!

My name is Bobby Sutton and the Project Healing Waters stories I have heard from my father have always held a special place in my heart. The Founder of PHW, Ed Nicholson, has been a family friend for a long time and has included my father, Bob Sutton, in many PHW trips. Being a Columbia, South Carolina resident I began to ask myself why there was not a PHW Chapter in Columbia. Geographically it is perfect, with the Saluda River winding through Columbia and with Fort Jackson and the VA hospital just a few miles away. With help from our chapter president Shawn Kenney, Alan Folger (VSP National Coordinator), John Bass (PHW Regional Coordinator), and all of my great friends at Saluda River TU, Project Healing Waters Columbia is now a Chapter!

We have received great support for Fort Jackson and have had 2 events on the Fort so far. Our first event on March 1st was a 3 hour Adaptive Fly-Fishing Clinic and we had about 30 soldiers in attendance. We held tying demonstrations as well as basic casting, and showed videos as well. We had 15 or so soldiers from the Warrior Transition Unit sign up for our six lesson Fly Fishing 101 course that we began last week. The excitement and enthusiasm of these heroes is truly amazing and we look forward to great friendships as well as furthering our partnerships with the facilities as well! Thanks to all my TU and PHW Friends for helping us get this great new chapter going!

Bobby Sutton
Program Lead
Saluda River TU

Rainbow

This is the first full-bodied trout I have painted, and I think I'm startin' to get the hang of it. Going back to my roots with a paint brush is challenging after spending the past few years trying to figure out pen & ink and colored pencils, but I'm starting to see the potential of it.

This rainbow was done with acrylics, and the image you see above is from a scanner. With a heavily textured base, getting a good scan is problematic. The scanner lights can do some pretty weird things with the bumps and ridges, but it came out pretty true to the original.

Gettin' Ready

With the Virginia Fly Fishing Festival coming up on the weekend of April 21st in Waynesboro, Virginia I had better be doing one of these a night. Of course I can't, but I do hope to have a few of these acrylic paintings done by then to show along with my colored pencil illustrations.

This Rainbow "skin" was done with nothing but a palatte knife and a broad brush, using primary colors right out of the tube. It measures 18" x 24". And for those of you that might wonder "how can this guy who is so persnickety and detail oriented do something like this?" . . . well, I'm wondering that myself. I'm not wondering about the fun level though. This was a blast to do!

And my apologies for the picture quality - I had to shoot it with my phone. My $400 Pentax - the one that is shock and water proof - isn't "rub" proof. While at the TU Veterans Service Program dinner in DC last week (more on that to follow in a future posting) I had the phone in my pocket and something rubbed against it, crashing the thing. Pentax said "sorry." Will I be buying a new one? I think NOT!

Back to the brushes...

I’ve been working with pen & ink and colored pencils for too long so I decided to break out the brushes and revisit my old friend…acrylic paint. This little study was done on a heavily gesso’d 5 inch square gallery wrapped canvas, and considering its been so long since I’ve done anything like this, it turned out OK.

The Mayflower

In retrospect Larry B. was a pretty good fishing buddy. Well, make that an adequate fishing buddy. In fact, if Larry B. hadn’t been adequate and hadn’t owned a car he wouldn’t have been a fishing buddy at all. But having a car made him, for awhile, my best fishing buddy of all time. I had heard that there was fishing to be had beyond our little neighborhood –fishing that required a bit of travel, so “Hey Larry B…wanna go fishing?”

We called his car the Mayflower. It was red and had those huge fins that cars of its vintage were known for, and best of all it had that modern, hi-tech push button deal on the dash that you used to change gears. Very cool. And if cars had been equipped with cup holders back then, the Mayflower’s would have held a can of ether. No, we weren’t abducting cheerleaders...it was to start the car with. A squirt down the carburetor and off we would go. The Mayflower usually got us where we were going, but not without a little chemical assistance. The transport known as the Mayflower was a 59 Plymouth and we would have probably done better using it to chase cheerleaders than fish.

As I said, the Mayflower usually got us to where we were going. It was getting home that was troublesome. Take that day after school when we headed for the strip pits. East of town there was an old mining area and long before the idea of reclamation came along these strip pits had turned themselves, all by themselves, into an exotic fishing paradise. Of course, just about anything would have been exotic if compared to our other nearby fishin’ holes.

There are abandoned lead, zinc and coal mines scattered about northeastern Oklahoma, and the ones we were interested in, if seen from a satellite, would look like a miniature version of New York’s Finger Lake region; one long skinny lake after another, each about a quarter mile in length and separated by equally long piles of tailings grown over with years of vegetation. The “pits,” as we called them, were an irresistible temptation to a couple of sixteen year olds, and if the pits had minds to wonder, they would have wondered just exactly what two teenagers were doing there during the daylight hours. We followed the well worn tracks made by the Saturday night crowds (avoiding the empty Coors cans as best we could) into the bowels of the place, and through no fault of its own – this time - with a lurching stop the Mayflower parked itself squarely on top of a rise. Business as usual, but we weren’t about to let a problem that could be solved later interrupt the present, so we hurriedly retrieved our rods from the back seat and got on with it.

The “pits” were inhabited by exotic, funny colored blue gills and bass the size of – well, the size of – we didn’t know. We’d heard that there were monster bass in those waters, but to date, except for the occasional large rise-form, we’d yet to see one. One of the guys that I worked with at the Phillips 66 station when pumping gas on weekends, Dillard the tire changer, had caught them there by the bucket load . . . or so he said. Of course he said that he’d caught a five pound trout there too.

The water in the “pits” was clear as a bell, but then it would have been since there was so little run-off to color it. Each of those skinny strips of water were totally supported by the rain that came straight down on them, and perhaps by the waters that bubbled up from some underground cavities left from the mining days. Thinking back, it might have been that bubbling up action that tinged the water a nice light blue and contributed to the coloration of the blue gills. Might have been just as well that we never caught anything of eating size out of the place.

I was armed with my fly rod, and Larry B. had the old steel bait caster with the free spooling Pflueger reel that his old man allowed him to use. Casting poppers along the bank I was having a blast with the bluegills when Larry B. let out a whoop, screaming something about a big bass. The whoop had an entirely different tonal quality than the one he used for backlashes so I half believed him and headed up the bank to see for sure.

Sure enough, he had a bass on, and just as he was dragging it onto the bank the sky busted loose with the kind of storm that would make an Oklahoma plains storm chaser drool. Well, it scarred the crap out of us and we high tailed it for the Mayflower. Soaking wet, we were grateful to get out of the storm, and storm it did for the next two hours.

You’ll remember that the Mayflower was high centered, so all we could do was sit and stare at the storm and plan our eventual exit from the place. It rained and rained, and rained some more, and we figured that if the tide kept rising we could float her off just like her namesake might have done to escape a sand bar grounding. But it wasn’t to be. When the rain finally quit we were ankle deep when we stepped out of the car. It would have taken Noah’s flood to free the Mayflower from her perch.

We tried everything we could think of to get her back on all fours. We tried the time tested teeter-totter trick and she wouldn’t budge. We pushed her we every which way but loose. We thought of sloshing underneath through the water and mud to dig away the mound that had her suspended but realized that our digging tools consisted of two fishing rods. We finally had to admit that we were beaten and headed up the dirt road to civilization and some help.

Some thirty minutes later we came upon a phone booth and as luck would have it, I had the right change to place a call – but only enough for one call. By now our dads would be home from work so we spent a few minutes arguing over which one we’d hit up for help. My dad had warned me about the “pits” a thousand times with some quaint stories about teen age couples disappearing down sink holes, so I wasn’t about to call him, and Larry B. just trembled when I casually suggested that, after all, since it was his car, his old man needed to rescue us. He finally stopped shaking when I started looking through the tattered yellow pages for a wrecker company.

Then it dawned on our teen aged brain trust, that between the two of us we had only two bucks to spend on the tow truck, so that was out. Then it occurred to my half of the trust that Dillard would be getting off work about then, and that of all people, he could find us and he would probably keep his mouth shut concerning our little fiasco. I found the number to the station and rang him up. Sure enough, he was still there and he agreed to meet us at the car.

Dillard was a bit unusual. One day when the station’s hydraulic lift was broken down and he was helping with my wipe the windows, check the tires, check the oil, a dollar gas routine, he told me he dropped out of school on the day he figured out “cipherin’. He had no intention on that momentous day of his eighth grade year to use this skill to decode the Ruskies’ secret cold war communications – nope, Dillard was a bigger thinker than that. He figured that he could figure out, or cipher, just about everything, and such a skill was sure to propel him to riches - which he proved by landing the tire changer job at the Phillips station.

Dillard beat us back to the Mayflower and as we sloshed up to the car he was going on with a treatise on “how to remove a car from a pyramid of muck.” Dillard explained that the fulcrum created by the “pyramid of muck” was nothing but a device intended to spoil our weekend plans and protect the girls from our nefarious intentions, and that if we were to give him just five minutes he could cipher us out of the mess we were in. As he rambled on about levers and such, detailing his intricate car removal plan by scratching about in the mud with the butt section of my fly rod, Larry B. and I seriously considered borrowing a dime from Dillard, going back to the pay phone and calling our dads. As a tire changer he was superb, but as a practitioner of bovine excreta, Dillard had no equal. So, a half hour later, as he began cipherin’ on “Plan #7,” we decided that our best bet was just to have him drive us home.

“How was school son?” was the usual greeting I heard from mom when entering the house, but that was usually well before dinner, and certainly well before dark. On this particular evening dad met me at the door. With a raised eyebrow and a look down at my mud covered Levi’s, he just shook his head and said, “Your dinner’s on the table. Where’s your fly rod?”

“Oh, Larry B.’s got it. I left it in his car. I’ll get it tomorrow…if I can.

Honored

I received word over the weekend that I've been selected as this year's Festival Artist for the 12th Annual Virginia Fly Fishing Festival, and I am indeed one lucky fellow. They'll be using my brookie illustration on their promotional material - posters, t-shirts, etc. and the original piece will be auctioned at their Foundation Dinner which will be held on April 21 at the Waynesboro Country Club.

Beau Beasley, noted author, festival director, and my friend, puts on a great show every year at the festival grounds in Waynesboro, Virginia, so mark your calendars for April 21st and 22nd. Even if it means cancelling that long planned adventure to your favorite trout stream to attend...well, you'll just have to do it. You won’t be disappointed.

http://www.vaflyfishingfestival.org/Information/festivalartist.html

My Brookie

This morning I finished up my entry in this years Virginia Fly Fishing Festival competition and I'm pretty pleased with the result - hope you all like it.

On the menu...

During the Christmas Holiday, between fishing the Saluda, go cart racing, going to the movies, busting my arse on a demonic kid's toy, and consuming thousands upon thousands of very tasty calories, I managed to get a few more illustrations done for Trout Diet section of the Adaptive Fly Fishing 101 book. I figure that I'll need the equivilant of at least two more Christmas Holidays to finish them up.

Attention!

This message is intended for all fathers and grandfathers...in fact it's for anyone older than twelve. DO NOT attempt to ride the new demonic toy known as the Ripstick. As I write this (using my right hand) at the table with Chad (who's gingerly sitting on an ice pack) we are trying to decide if the implement of doom should be cut into small pieces before tossing it into the trash, or if it's usage should be limited to those with fewer years and greater coordination.

I was the first to go down and I'm certain that if not for the metal plate already in my left wrist I would now be in the emergency room having one installed. Chad followed me to the concrete a short time later and the verdict is still out on his condition.

So, further adventures in the fantasy world of our imagination - the place where we think we are still young - are out of the question. To say nothing of another trip to the Saluda. Which leaves me with some time to work on the brookie.

I'm now to the scarry part - adding color. Wish me luck

MERRY Southern CHRISTMAS

It was a little surreal. Here I was on Christmas Eve, standing in the not too cold Saluda River on a warm day, fishing in my shirtsleeves with Spanish Moss draping the river. This is some wintertime fishin’ that I can get used to. Trout fishing and Spanish Moss? Can’t be very many spots like that around.

They say that Columbia, South Carolina is just shy of Hell when it comes to summertime, but if this is a true sampling of their winter weather, I’ll take all I can get. Chad and I snuck away from the family to get in a few hours on the Saluda, and this tailwater – like all the others I have sampled – proved to be a difficult assignment. Big fast water and weak knees don’t mix well, and was I ever glad that I had a wading staff…and Chad’s arm as we made it back across the main stem. We ran into a few of the Saluda River TU guys that I had met at one of their recent chapter meetings and I had to sheepishly admit that I was wearin’ the skunk. Soft hackles were the ticket and of course I had none. That’s my excuse, anyway.

Back to the drawing board

OK...Here we go again. I've limbered up my fingers, I've sharpened my penciles and made sure I have an adequate supply of ink on hand. Yep, I'm going to do another illustration, and I'll be entering it in the competition for the Virginia Fly Fishing Festival Artist of the Year. My friend Beau Beasley, the director and driving force behind the Virginia Fly Fishing Festival, has pressured me into entering some artwork in this year's competition, and though I'm so rusty I creak, I'll give it my best shot.
Since joining the national staff of Trout Unlimited just about a year ago I've had very little time to do this sort of thing...this sort of thing being artwork...so wish me luck and follow along as I give it my best shot. What you see here is the very early stages of a brookie, and I hope that by the end of December he will be worthy of consideration. Stay tuned. More to follow.

On another front, I've been busy doing some illustrations for our Adaptive Fly Fishing 101 book project. Bugs, bugs and more bugs...These and many more will be in the chapter about trout diets.