Fly Rod Chronicles Logo

I got a call from Curtis Fleming about creating a new logo for his TV show Fly Rod Chronicles and of course I accepted the challenge. It has come along way from the original idea sketch and I think both Curtis and I are pleased with some of the final edits. Here is a look at one of them.

Turkeys to musky to carp?

How did a morning chasing turkeys, with a little musky hunting thrown in there, turn into this?

With the help of some good friends that are always "on call" for carp. It started with some tight-lipped gobblers that talked me into running up the river and throw for musky. Not that much excitement other than helping some guys on the bank locate a gobbler that I heard on the private land they were hunting. Their calling faded slowly in the background as I drifted downstream, and almost instantly my opportunistic hears switched to another sound I was real familiar with. That was mating carp in the shallows! The recent rain storms have all but polished off the lake level and did so in the matter of one day, the lake went from 91 ft to 97. That meant newly flooded vegetative flats that the carp have been missing for quit sometime now. They were home and you could tell they liked it. They were making up for lost time in some serious reckless abandonment. After some mucking around, I was able to get my boat in the 15 or so inches of water and began to rig up the biggest rod I had with me-a 7 weight. I thought it was a touch light, and couldn't help but remember the tip I broke off of this same rod on a carp two years ago. To make a long story short, even though they were more concerned with passing on their genes, I was able to land a couple of large fish.

Realizing I was a little out gunnned in this situation, I did the only thing I knew to do-call some backup. Marty, Coby, and Wood were down there soo fast I'm almost certain that some lies were told in such a short notice. We were wet, slimy, cold, and stinky, but loved every bit of . We got some 35 lb'ers and looked like the average was in the 15-20 lb range. When I woke up this morning at 5:00 am to go turkey hunting, the last place I thought I would be is there on the carp shallows at 1:00 am. But hey, its spring time with critters spawning and breeding so you better be prepared to take advantage of any opportunity. That reminds me, I better get my gun out of the boat before I take off up the mountain in the morning.

Whitey is back.........

in the river! The turkeys have been less than cooperative this week but I've been able to keep alive my innate urge to conquer all things wild by beating up on the white bass. I have been able to get on them earlier this year as a result of two things, lake drawdown and my new fishing kayak that my buddy JEB hooked me up with. It is the 10 ft Moken by Feel Free and it is soo fishable and comfortable. I would recommend this setup to anybody looking for a fishing kayak. I've managed in the past to get a turkey and a mess of white bass in the same day, which to me is the celebration of spring time, but this year my goal is this: big gobbler, spank whitey, AND catch a musky in the same day. Not necessarily in that order either, although that is the more likely scenerio.

Trout via Musky

Yeah, it was a musky trip. Yeah, we were throwing big swimbaits. Yeah, this joker tried to swallow one. I couldn't resist taking this photo of an 8 inch rainbow trout swimbait hanging from the mouth of very large and angry bow. Me, Landon, and Walker were all but just discussing the fact that none of us brought a light spinning rod to hit a short section known to hold trout when this slime ball t-boned Walker's plastic. They started getting leader shy so we went from 50# wired leaders to 30#.

Just got started on a new piece....finally. I've got alot of work to do on finishing it up, but it's the fun part of a painting........adding the detail. I caught this rainbow last winter and got Sara to take a picture for me. It was the dead of winter and the fish had the usual dull coat on so I've had to use my own imagination for the colors. I might even put a dry fly in the snout and add a few green leaves to give it a hint of spring.

brown troutz

Kestrel

It is about that time.......the dead of winter when days are short and I get stuck inside more than I want. Well, I got the itch to start painting some and did this Kestrel last night with some titanium white and payne's gray. It was nice to kick back and only worry about using two colors. I actually did this bird for the cover of a birding phamplet which will be in black and white. It was a good warm up piece for me and got me anxious to start on some paintings. I've got some good ideas for my paintings this year.......a bedded buck in snow, strutting turkeys on a steep meadow, and such. I'm going to give the fish a break and concentrate on some mammals instead. Check back in and maybe I'll have something to look at.