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Sunday, September 23, 2012

I was AWOL. I'm a bad boy.

So yeah, I made a run for the hills.
I needed some Mountain time bad. I don't hunt deer mainly because I don't like being in the woods with people that shoot their guns once a year, matter of fact I generally stay the fuck out of the woods for those 45 days.
But it's been awhile given recent circumstances. So I went, city hunters or not, and bound and determined to have a good time and I did once I made up my mind that I would return fire if I got potshotted at.

Fuck man, every time I turned around Pops was there. We spent so much time in the mountains together fishing and hunting and getting away from our wives that there's damned few places I can think of that we haven't been to together.

I took a break here where me and Pops used to camp. He'd been hunting this patch of woods since he was 17 and I started hunting it about the same age.
You can tell it's been a few years since we've been here with all the deadfalls.
 
 
I ended up on the south fork of the Stanislaus at mid-day wondering if it was worth the effort to try to fish and realized what I stupid fucking question that was.
I grabbed my flyrod and box of flies and tumbled down the embankment until I hit water, then climbed out onto a boulder and realized that I had a box of dry flies, not my wet fies and nymphs I needed. I can basically cast a line, but I'm not enough of a flyfisherman to be able to match the hatch or figure out what insects are on the water that time of the year. Luckily I had a couple of San Juan worms and a couple of Wooliebuggers in my dry fly box so I tied on a San Juan and immediately got a fish on. First fucking cast. It was a scrapper and when I got it in it was a wild rainbow trout, not a factory fish judging by it's color. It was also about 5 inches long.
About 10 minutes later, I got a brown trout, about the same size. No shit, they were two of the smallest trout I haver ever caught seen in my entire life.
I spent another couple of hours casting, losing flies and missing strikes before I finally called it quits. I caught a couple of dinks, got some casting practice in, and learned that bifocals are now in order.
 
Here's the water I was fishing.

 
 
And then I decided to stop by an old friend and pay a vist - some ass-kicking scenery off Herring Creek Road. The Geological formation is called Trail of the Gargoyles and the scenery is fucking spectacular. I just took a couple of pictures because I could spent an entire day (did just that about 30 years ago)  wandering around the rim taking pictures.

 
 
So that was where I've been. Looking at weird rocks, breathing air that ain't never been breathed before and embarrassing myself with a flyrod.

28 comments:

  1. Travelin Light and Well HeeledSeptember 24, 2012 at 2:25 AM

    damn
    wish i could have went along
    thats some purty country
    can'y say as i would blame ya for going or for shooting back when a retard shoots your direction

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  2. Having never fished fresh water, it always cracks me up hearing people talk about brown trout. That's slang at home for a pinched loaf floating by, something you used to see after a flood overflowed the sewers.

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  3. sometimes you gotta take a break. glad you had a good weekend.

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  4. Pretty country WireCutter.

    I've always admired the mountains and some of the nices I've had the opportunity to visit were the Smokies in North Carolina. I'm headed there in about 3 weeks for a little "at ease" time.

    Not to hunt, but to get up on a crisp frosty morning, look up at a perfectly blue sky, check out at the deer while drinking a hot mug of coffee. Sylva, NC here I come..... Yahoo.

    Hell, at my age it's better than getting a night's worth of "around the world" by a waitress from Hooters!

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  5. Nice. That shit being out in the boonies is good for the soul. You needed that I'm pretty sure. Cool that you went to you and your dad's old camping spot. I bet you had a nice conversation with him.

    Go easy, broheem.

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  6. Great pics of beautiful country, glad to hear you took a break, I wondered if the black widow had got you.

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  7. I think this one is worthy of your title - http://im41.com/archives/15316

    Got To Be From California

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  8. Fishing is good to do anytime even if 'ya don't catch anything. Soothes the soul...

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  9. That is my kind of water!

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  10. i lived in utah for 2 years after i left germany. i loved fishing those tiny trout streams. amazing there were fish in some of them, they were so small.

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  11. Damn Beautiful scenery! I'm glad you got out to enjoy the wilderness (home away from home) and reminisce. As far as fishing goes.... (at least you catch something)! :-)

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  12. Everybody needs some time like that.
    It's good for your spirit!

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  13. Bifocals? Fuck. Wait till they stick trifocals on your face. Then we can talk about suck.

    Great pic, but I still wouldn't live in that communist utopia.

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  14. Steve - the river's a good 50 feet across at that point. Just looks tiny from the bridge I was standing on when I took the picture.

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  15. Sarthurk - it's at just about the same altitude as the Clavey, just north a few miles. And no, it's not nearly as snakey as the Clavey for some reason.
    I swear, Long Barn has more fucking rattlers per square foot than any other place I've ever seen.

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  16. I was thinking drone strike for the lack of activity.

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  17. The stream reminds me of what we called The Indian River in San Diego county where we would camp, fish and tube.

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  18. Well thank Buddha you were taking a long-deserved respite and enjoying every second. When I saw nothing new posted here all weekend I figured you had a hissy fit, ditched the blog and went into the mountains to shoot things. Glad I got the first two wrong. Welcome back. Don't ever do that again without warning us.

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  19. If no luck fishing,what about stickin a gold pan in the water? Ya never know what washed down the mountain during the run off and a pan don't take up much room. Just a thought. Welcome back dude. We missed Ya.

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  20. I was a little too high up for that.
    I do carry a pan and classifying screen behind the front seat of my truck, as well as an e-tool in the back just for such an occasion.

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  21. I really appreciate that sort of country. If you are ever a bit south, you need to check out the Kern River from Lake Isabella down to the mouth of the canyon. As a boy, I used to float it often.

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  22. The reason why I take my vacations around hiwy 395 and westwards. The Sierras are the one thing about CA I miss, and there's nothing like them anywhere near me now.

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