Tuesday 3/9 - 3/13 Rob and Nick and The Big Wash....

Rob and Nick came over from Ft Wayne for a long half day. Nick is dying to catch a steelhead and we are zero for 2 on trips. But, he did hook two fish today....one in dark water and one on gravel. Both were nice fish. Rob is "along for the ride" as he puts it. He and I talked about hunting in Alberta and maybe doing spring snows next year. Rob and I have a lot in common!

Well all that rain that's been holding out has finally come down the river. A good wash is was my lawn needed but I coulda done without the river gettin' messed up. I canceled Friday with Paul and Doc and looks like Robert is going to hold off for Sunday as well. Its coming down at a good pace now but we did get more rain today. I hope Monday works out. Next week starts to get busy and the wiggle room with reschedule disappears real quick.

I took Mitch to his baseball "draft"...or whatever they call it. It's a skills test that lasted several hours. I asked if RJ could give it whirl too but the cut off is 7 years old and he's only 5. Granted, he'd probably play better than most of the 7 and 8 year olds but rules is rules. Plus, the boss guy was really big and had red hair...kind of a fat viking looking dude with a Marine cut, so I didn't push the issue.

March 11th, 2010....The D and BS

Dan and I hit The D for a few hours this morning. The water was coming up and going off though still fishable. I hooked one in a slot below gravel...I presume a female holding behind a redd that I couldn't see. Kinda surprised me so I punted after a few head shakes. I saw some newly worked gravel and one occupied redd but little activity in the way of traffic. 45.5 degree water.

We headed down to BS dam and slid in line. Dan with a two-hander showing off with a big 'Truder. I was feeling the urge to assimilate into the crowd and grabbed Dan's drift rod out of the back seat of his truck. I think it was a Cabela's blank, green Fish Eagle II that he rolled up in his signature pinkish red thread and used remnants of other corks to make this bizarre fucked up looking handle that was ill shaped and peculiar but oddly comfortable in the hand. t didn't take long and I was into a fish on a #6 chart/orange nuke. I kicked it's ass...a smallish female winter-run in great shape. As I let her go I said,"What a nice looking fish" a toothless hillibilly nearby followed me up with,"It'd be a lot nicer if it was on a fuckin' stringer". And with that gem of wisdom in our collective thoughts, I let her go.

Shortly thereafter I picked up another fish in the same tank right in front of a big rock. This spot is notorious to Dan and I because the majority of those guys that live down there never fish it. It's draped in line anyway so you can feel the line and then you get jacked by a fish that's laying in the hydraulic just upstream of the BFR. I landed it in the same place and one of the regulars, a good guy says to me, "Man...you don't play em at all do you?"....alluding to the fact that I usually get them handled before they handle me. I said,"Nope, I like to kick their ass and move on".

About 10 minutes later I nailed a big male that beat the crap out of me for a few minutes but then I had him on a rail coming in. He stopped just long enough to get fouled up in a bunch of line refuse and bent my hook out on a rock. These hooks are TMC 105 knock offs...not ever sure what they are....Daiichi maybe. They seem to bend a little more readily but the price is worth the gamble I guess. Adios Mr. Steel. I also landed two nice clean Redhorse Suckers....so technically I was the "hi rod" for the time I was there. Dan was sure to point that out to some of the nay saying, fly fishing guide haters down there. I can handle myself with the drift rod...been a while but it was good to give it whirl again.

Sunday March 7th, 2010 - Quick Drift

I was able to race off to the river and meet Josh Lantz for a quickie evening drift. By the time I hiked in to catch up with Josh he had hooked two fresh chromers and had his ass handed to him. That's a great way to beat the cabin fever. It's game on now and there is no looking back. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those springs when guys will say,"Damn, I sure wish I'd have given you a call two weeks ago".

Saturday 3/6/10 Burning Gas in The Chicken Cow

Dan and I took Dustan's Chicken Cow up and down the Joe for half a day today. The river looks about as good as I've ever seen it. Water temp was hovering around 45.5 which is amazing. Really looking forward to fishing the Joe this spring...unless we get a blow out of course. We hooked nothing but it was nice to get out and do some scouting.

I also spent about a half hour photographing the two Traveling Decoys from the Duck Hunter's Boat Page that were carved by the late Lee Harker. The decoys are destined to be given to Lee's grandson Blake in a couple weeks. A Bluebill and giant Black Duck...these two blocks traveled all over North America since October...its really neat to read the journals and read the signatures on the bottom. I do it every year....neat stuff. 

Jay's Column: Last of The Mohican Players........

Who’s that crazy man in the street?

Published: Friday, March 5, 2010 8:39 AM CST
Like lots of kids back in the 70s, my brother and I as well as a few friends tended to try and reenact TV shows and movies we had seen.

There were westerns and war movies and of course films about the frontiersmen and their struggle with the Native Americans. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were honing our outdoor skills while we were playing cowboys and Indians in Charlie Creek Valley out the back door.

Crumy weather...

This weather pattern is hardly fit for a steelhead or a goose to eat. I'm ready for some action!

State of things....

Well, the weather people were wrong again on the long range and fairly inaccurate on the long range. Looks like the big warm ups we were supposed to get fizzled out. Not terrible temps but not the big thaw I was expecting either. Goose hunting was fair at best yesterday. It's a shame that so many idiots thinks it's okay to hunt 3 or 4 times a year and jump hundreds of birds off a roost that several other parties are relying on for hunting success. 2 or 3 geese are harvested instead of dozens which ultimately is the goal of the managers that set these seasons. It probably doesn't help that every time we go the parties get larger and larger...more hunters to hide and more shots taken at the same birds.

Great Waters Chicago....

I have some last minute work to do ie create a one hour program for my presentation at the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo in Chicago this weekend. Looking forward to seeing a bunch of friends there. I'll be on my back killing geese Monday and hopefully swinging some flies next week as well!

Jay

Jay's Newspaper Column - Treasure in the attic is the topic

Old Treasures - January 2010
By Jay Anglin

Occasionally you hear a story about somebody that literally stumbles into a treasure virtually right under their nose. I recall a couple years ago I read an article about a guy that was refurbishing his home and found hundreds of vintage movie promotional posters inside the walls of the home. Apparently the previous owner of the home had operated a movie theatre during what is known as the “The Golden Age of Hollywood” and took the posters home to insulate the walls. Obviously those Gone With the Wind and Citizen Kane posters didn’t seem all that valuable at the time. Today there are worth a fortune of course.

Swinging with the long rod...

Yesterday my buddy Dan and I spent half the day wading the St Joe below Berrien Springs swinging flies. This was not just a scouting mission, Dan also did his best to refine my spey casting technique. Occasionally I was consistently making decent skagit style casts but when he started to get into the "585 grains and a 10 foot cheater" and "remember the 180 degree rule...you know about that I'm sure" talk I pretended not be confused!

Okay, so I'm of Scottish ancestry and for whatever reason always preferred Irish whiskey but Dan has me sipping good Scotch now. As of yesterday he's convinced me to give a shit about spey casting as well and he always reminds me that I should be an expert because I'm "a Scot". Thanks old buddy!

We didn't hook anything or see anything for that matter but that was the first time in several outings the past week that Dan didn't.

Jay

Jay's Newspaper Column - Topic: Reel Maintenance and Disasters

Spring Dust Off
3/5/09


If the weather forecast is any indication, lots of fishermen are going to be thinking about dusting off the fishing gear and hitting the water in the near future. It’s easy to assume that everything is in working condition and just go ahead and make that first big spring foray to the stream or the lake. Then, when you break off the inaugural fish because in reality, everything is not in working order

January 21st, 2010

I'm finally getting up to speed on this blog thing. What the hell does "blog" mean anyway...where'd that word come from? According to Wiki it's the shortened term for "weblog". So be it.

As you can see I've posted a couple of my newspaper columns from the LaPorte Herald Argus. I'll cherry pick some good ones(and probably not so good ones)and post them in a random fashion. I'll try to be seasonal at least!

The Anglin Outdoors website got another makeover so if you have a chance take a look.... www.anglinoutdoors.com

Jay's Newspaper Column - Winter snow

Snow Time
By Jay Anglin - January 2009

This week I proved to myself again that you can harvest a pair of geese over eight decoys in driving snow on a day that barely saw the temperature get about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. I was comfortably ensconced in my layout blind

Jay's Newspaper Column - Sledding is the topic

Note...titles are as I saved them in my file and not as printed!

Slicker Than Greased Owl Shit
By Jay Anglin - January 2010

The kids got out of school an hour and fifteen minutes early Thursday so I decided I’d take them sledding. Whenever we go I fondly recall how much fun I used to have sledding. It seemed that my friends and I were always draggin’ a sled or an inner tube around regardless of where we were going. If there was a hill nearby it was mandatory to take a run or two.

How many geese does it take........

I spent Saturday and Sunday laying in a spread of 150 goose decoys. I had floaters, sleepers, resters, full body feeders and uprights, shells, sillouettes....a real nice mishmash of decoys. I set up at the edge of a lake where we've kept the water open with an ice-eater for the past 6 weeks and ran the decoys into the adjacent pasture. Both days I saw around 1000 geese and worked hundreds but only few made the fatal mistake of finishing in the decoys.

It was the last two days of the regular season and these birds were very well educated. Stale you might say. The conditions weren't very good either...barely a breeze, flat skies. This presented a very difficult calling situation which created the perpetual problem of not calling enough and yet always calling too much. I hate that.

But, in the end, the hunters prevailed and we got our birds. We'll get back at them on February 1st for the nuisance season.

First off....

This is my first blog entry. I've always considered the term "blog" sort of unsavory. That's why it took me so long to get my very own......blog.

So, I will post my newspaper column here and random thoughts and stories. Be back soon!

Jaybird