Difficult day

I decided against all odds to go to the mountains today. I arrived at my selected creek on the Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I hiked about a mile and a half and immediately ran in to three others fly fishermen. Oh well, after a brief chat I continued up the trail for about another half a mile. I rigged up and the humidity was unbearable. I had maybe half a dozen strikes from small fish in about two hours of fishing. The gnats were eating my alive, the sweat was pouring down my spine. I just couldn't take it anymore. I decided to drive back to the Tn side to find higher altitude. After an hour of hiking and another half an hour of driving I was back on another stream. It wasn't more than ten minutes or so and the whole misery started again. The heat and humidity was so intense that short of standing in the river with your head under the surface would do. I accepted defeat and decided that I had to live with a skund for the first time on a mountain stream in many many years. What a miserable day to be out.

Enough of the whining, cooler temps are coming and I'm looking forward to it.

Crazy Heart and Camping

What a wonderful movie. I don't particularly like Maggie Gyllenhaal that much but she was pretty good in this one. The stand out performance however was from Jeff Bridges. A superb movie. Highly recommended.

Did some high altitude camping this weekend over in NC. I was at 5000 ft plus. Let me tell you what a wonderful feeling it is to get back to camp and it's in the sixties. It was scorching down below as you all know. The fishing was so so. I caught some but nothing to write home about.

Three Swedish Books I've Recently Read

Finska Vinterkriget (The Winter War) by Robert Edwards is an historical account of the events taking place during the finnish winter war with Russia. The book is very detailed and I'm sure it's fine if you are into troop movements and minute details. As for general interest groups it becomes a somewhat intimidating and dry read. I'll give it a 3 out of 5.

Monica Antonssons book about Mia Eriksson who received asylum in the U.S.A. due to domestic abuse in her home country of Sweden. This book questions the whole story we have been fed from Liza Marklund and Mia Eriksson. I have to say, regardless who is right, Monica's book is a good read and somehow make you wonder what you can believe in nowadays. I have previously stated that I think Liza Marklund and Mia Eriksson did a James Frey. The book is recommended and I give it a 4 out of 5.

Maria Eriksson wrote a follow up about her daughter Emma. The book is credited to Maria but supposedly tells the story from the perspective of her daughter Emma who was the child Mia had with the man she accuses of all the horrible acts done to her. I have to say the book is poorly written and almost feels like a diary. It is badly edited and it shows that without Liza and her team behind her she can't write. The book is not recommended and I give it a 1 out of 5.

Bear jam, Turkey jam, Deer jam and don't you know it fishing jam

I did the insane today. After stopping for lunch and a chat with Byron, Paula and the crew at Little River Outfitters in Townsend, Tn I headed for Cades Cove and Abrams Creek. I wasn't even two hundred yards before this imbecile in front of me decided to just sit there and look at a turkey. Don't get me wrong, I know the national park is for everyone, but dude there's a pullout hundred yards in front of you and a sing which politely ask you to not block the road. After I honked my horn they moved on and another mile in I was greeted by a bear jam. Then another mile or so after that a deer jam. You would think I had enough of jam by now but when I finally got on the stream I ran in to no less than six other fishermen/women. By now I should been all bummed out. No, I've learned in my old days that if you do a little bit of hiking you bypass all these easy going fishing people. So I pressed on up on the stream. I found my spot and started nymphing with a BH Tellico. I picked up seven rainbows on this trip. I lost a couple that might have been 10" but the ones I caught were short but fat. The water temp was a little warm, 66 degrees at 4 pm. A rain shower came through and when I quit fishing at 8 pm the water temp was down to 60. I drove out of the cove in a more reasonable time than going in, but remember, If you do this trip have patience because I almost lost it on this one. People who visit the cove are really not bad people. The problem is that 60-70% of the visitors have no regards for time or the concept that I have seen enough of turkeys to sit on the road and stare at them.

I had to put my Cat down today.

It was not easy, my first cat Clyde and one of the nicest and funniest cats around is no longer with us. It was the right thing to do. I never thought it would be easy but not this hard either. Although he was closer to my wife than me, he was after all our first cat and I was the one suggesting that we take him home. We got him in 1999 right at the same time as we bought this house we now live in. A coworker at the time knew of a lady who had too many cats. The rest is history.

Clyde was 13 years old and to me that doesn't sound that old, not when you consider that he was inside all the time and got the best food a cat could crave. Oh well, I got two others to take care of, one was real sick earlier this year Tiggy, but he recovered after we took him to the hospital for a four day stint. I'm not going in to the details of Clyde's passing but I think he is in a better place now. I will miss him though and it's not exactly a happy day at our house. People who say "Well he was just a cat" doesn't understand. They become something more than just an another animal. If you ever let a cat in close to your heart you know what I mean.

Wore em' out on South Holston

I'm just back from a two night camping trip. I took a day off from work on Friday. I drove up to Backbone Rock area to camp for a few nights. I set up camp Thursday evening under threatening skies. No rain yet though. It was to come the following day. I have wanted to fish Beaverdam Creek for several years now and my plan was to fish Beaverdam after South Holston. Well, it didn't happen. I had to fish S. Holston both days. Mind you, they were very good days but I was really wanting to spend some time on Beaverdam and one other creek in the area. The rain moved in Friday afternoon and put a stop to that. I got back to camp around 5 pm and it was raining hard. Beaverdam looked like chocolate milk. When I got up this morning to take a look at it, it wasn't much better. I decided to spend both days on S. Holston instead.

I got to the river on Friday morning at around 7:30 am. I and maybe six other anglers were on the water. They had scheduled a pulse at 1 so I had time to fish until about 1:45 pm or so. I began with a 22 zebra midge dropped off of a BH pheasant tail. I immediately began to connect. I fished this way until about 10:30 when everything seemed to slow down. I was tired and hungry so I decided to call it enough and go back to camp. I caught a total of 17 fish in three hours. Two were 15" rainbows and several browns in the 12" range. A very good morning indeed. It didn't look like the others were catching that much. I think they fishermen who are willing to go down in size on midges will do better than if you insist on dries the first thing in the morning. There were no sulphurs on the water at all.

Today, Saturday was more of the same, I fished with the same set up. A black zebra midge with red ultra wire dropped off of the bh pheasant tail. It was somewhat more action today but the sizes of the fish were down. I did managed to catch a couple in the 13" range but most were 10" or so. I caught about 23 today. I had a couple come up and push my dry so I'm sure later in the evening for the ones who wait out the pulse, there would be opportunities on the dry. All in all a good couple of days on the South Holston. I still hope to do Beaverdam one day. I probably will wait until the Green Drakes next year.

Monroe County Stream

Went with a friend of mine today to a Blount county mountain stream. We really visited two streams in one trip. We began our day around high noon and the fishing took off pretty much instantly. There were very sporadic hatches of Yellow Sallies and one lone Green Drake. I also spotted a couple of sulphurs. Water temp was at 60 and the water level has gone down to almost a little low. My friend caught a nice bow around 10 inches and I had several fat ones in the 8 to 9 inch range. This particular stream has some good fish in it and it was a lovely and very comfortable day in the seventies.

We took a break to check out another stream in the vicinity. This particular stream is nowhere near the other one in quality. It is a lovely stream but you will get tired of fishing for dinks after a while. I'm not one to ruffle anyone's feathers but if you are after better quality fishing don't waste your time on upper Citico in the wild section. I'm sure there are a few larger ones in there but for the most part you will find better fishing elsewhere.