Blast From The Past

  Broke out the scanner and took an attempt at editing some old prints of fish from yesteryear. 

34" Lake Run Brown caught on a green caddis pupa - Circa 1996

Don't act like those camo waders don't impress you. I see you checking them out....

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12 Months of Awesomeness: March

So.... as many of you know, I turned 30 recently. Once I finally quit dry heaving and hyperventilating I took a real hard look at how I have spent my life. Now don't get me wrong, I have had a very spirited and eventful life, but I haven't completed half of the things that I thought I would have by now. This is an epiphany that will not go unnoticed or without immediate action. I have decided that I don't want to wake up 40 and feel the same way.

This leads us to [/que Michael Buffer voice] 12 MONTHS OF AWESOMENESS......

So here's my plan. I have spent too much time saying that, "one day I will". Every month starting with March, I will do something that I have always wanted to do, but put off. In March, I will take guitar lessons. I have sat around far too many campfires wishing I knew how to play the guitar better. 8 weeks of lessons will hopefully set me on the right path and get me jamming CCR songs by July. Either way, I will have done something that I always said I was going to do.

This is going to be a great year. 

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The Last Day of My 20's

Tomorrow, I will be 30 years old.... sobering.

It seems like yesterday I was a 20 year old kid running up and down river banks looking for risers, scraping my knees on rocks and smoking cigarettes. Now I rarely do either, choosing to fish more from boats and laying off the tobacky. I've seen a lot of stuff since then. At 20, I had yet to fish a lot of amazing places. Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Wyoming and the Keys were all places that were far off fantasy lands. Now I have experienced them all. I have even managed to catch a few fish along the way.

So what now? Is this the part of my life where I settle down? Is this the beginning of the end?

I like to think the opposite. My 30's are going to be the best years of my life. I am going to fish more exotic places like Kamchatka and Argentina. Hopefully I will be able to afford nicer things, so I plan on getting more into bamboo, nicer spey gear and classic glass rods. I am going to spend more time looking for mushrooms and identifying birds instead of watching a bobber bounce. Instead of resorting to nymphs, I will fish dries or streamers even more than I do now. I will fish less crowded places than are harder to get to. Not because I want to catch more or bigger fish, but simply because if I don't do it now, who knows when I will. My thirties will be my best years of my life filled with love, excitement and adventure.

Carpe Diem, my friends.