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| 12/20/09 Well folks, If your a fly fisherman in the midwest I'm sure you have already heard the news. We lost a great one last night. Rusty Gates, owner of Gates Lodge, and the best friend the Ausable river ever had, lost his battle with lung cancer. He was a tireless champion of that river and we are all better for it. The guy probably only weighed 150 lbs soaking wet but he had a pair of balls on him... He did not back down from a fight when it came to that river corridor...many a big business got their ass kicked when they fucked with the AuSable...or tried to. We should all tip our cap to the memory of Rusty when we wade those waters. I will miss my friend. God speed Gator... |
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| 2/28/10 The coaching season is officially over. We finished up last weekend so now it's time to turn back to fishing. It was a big day at the mail box last week. Monday the little 3wt from LL Bean showed up. I took it and the 6wt I picked up a few months back for a test spin at the park today. The 3wt is just north of a cane rod in terms of casting...very slow. I would liken it to one of the Orvis Trout Bum series, only half the cost. It's going to be a fun little rod to fish. I was really impressed with the 6wt though. It cast, for me anyways, very nice!!! It was to become my new streamer rod but it may also become the new Hex rod as well. On Wed the cane rod finally showed up after almost a year and a half. It's going to be fun to get that back in the rotation as well...and now with an extra tip the pressure is off a little in case of another mishap. The biggest item to show up last week however arrived on Thursday. I decided to bite the bullet and invest in a new HD video camera. It set me back quite a bit but I hope in the long run it will be worth it. I didn't buy it to necessarily shoot the fishing videos, though it will be used for that, I have a bigger plan but we'll see how that all plays out in the coming year. The Wisconsin opener is this coming weekend so I hope to take it up there and run it through it's paces. It's a much different camera than I'm used to so it's going to take some getting used to. I've decided to take it along with me to Idaho in a few weeks so I best dial it in. I may or may not do a video of the opener but I plan to do one for the Idaho trip. I'm also looking forward to next weekend taking the LLBean rod on the maiden voyage as well as reacquainting myself with the cane rod. I haven't looked at the long range weather but as it stands now it shouldn't be to bad. I suppose run-off could always be a factor but we'll see. I threw up some pics of the new rods on the stills page. |
| 3/9/10 Just a quick note because I'm slammed at work and I don't see alot of time in the near future to get the things done that I wanted to. The Wisconsin opener went well. I would say the fishing, at least for us, was decent to very good. We found a couple creeks that between about 12:30 and 3:30 had very good midges and olives. It's tough to beat kneeling in a snow bank in March and throwing dry flies to rising fish!!! Nymphing was far more productive but those couple hours a day were hard to beat. I did snap a few pics but I'm not sure when I'm going to get around to posting them. I also shot some video with the new camera. I've looked at most of the footage and it looks good. The purpose wasn't to come away with a fishing video persay... really just to kick the tires on the camera. I was hoping to put together something this week and have it up by the weekend but I highly doubt that is going to happen. I'll get to it, just not sure when. I leave for Idaho next Wed so things are going to be tight as to whether I'll even have it done by then. I did fish with the LL Bean rod on Saturday. I LOVE it!! It is a fun little rod to fish with, and had more than enough backbone to throw an indicator and a couple nymphs. I also fished with the cane rod on Sunday, It was a hoot! Boy, a ten inch trout puts a very nice bend in that rod. They just have so much feel to them...if that makes any sense. Hopefully I'll get some pics and the video up sooner than later...gotta scoot. |