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Those of you who share my affinity for PBR should enjoy the above picture. It was taken unbeknownst to me by my friend Russ while we were on a recent fishing trip with The Wife. Not much better than a cold beer after a day of fishing. Too bad Russ' photography skills were better than my fishing skills on this day. . .

About the economy

I generally try to keep this blog about fishing and my other (mis)adventures, but perhaps we should add "staying on topic" to the list of things I could be better at.

As some of you may know, I've been applying for a few job openings. I enjoy my current work, but am interested in changing gears a bit. One position had seemed especially promising and was very exciting. Unfortunately when I talked with their hiring partner a few days ago, I found out that that they were going to offer me the position but had decided not to fill their opening because of all the economic uncertainty. When this happened, The Wife and I experienced our first personal impacts from the current economic downturn.

With the economy in the pooper and regular people (e.g. me) being affected, we turn to the current political climate where McCain has "suspended" his campaign.

"Why is suspended in quotes," you ask.

"Because this must be one of the most politically motivated moves ever," I reply.

Lets take a look at a few things. First, neither McCain nor Obama are on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Moreover, with Democrats in charge of the Senate and relevant committees, I doubt McCain and the accompanying press mob would actually be of much "help". As far as I can tell, McCain may be most productive by staying away until the bill leaves committee.

Second, McCain elected to accept public financing and, as such, doesn't have the financial resources of Obama's campaign. Could McCain be trying to save money until closer to the election?

Third, McCain's "suspension" has successfully diverted the media and the public from a series of other important issues: McCain's campaign manager accepting pay from Freddie Mac as recently as last month, recent polls (including those by Fox) show McCain falling behind, and Palin has had another interview that makes her lack of knowledge on important issues painfully obvious.

Finally, McCain has threatened to withdraw (or is forfeit the right word?) from the debate. Could this be because McCain doesn't want to face questions about his involvement in bringing about this economic mess in the first place? Will McCain try and postpone/cancel the V-P debate? We all know he keeps Palin on a short, well scripted leash.

In the meantime, McCain is banking on us (the voting public) not recognizing his "suspension" as a political ploy. He must think we are a bunch of idiots.

Listen, I'm not trying to bash McCain here. But, this "suspension" is crap. How long has it been since he addressed anything of substance? Since before the convention? Meanwhile, the economy is wrecked and, if I'm beginning to feel the effects of the downturn, you can bet that less fortunate people are getting screwed.

One final thought, this was a really hard post to write without swearing. Mom, you should be proud.

Another great day on the water...

Holy cow it's been a long time since I posted anything on here... Gunahaftodobetter.

Instead of trying to recap the last month, I'm just going to pick things up like I never left...

The Wife and I got out fishing a bit on Sunday. It was a beautiful day, with just a hint of fall in the air. As you can tell, the water was crystal clear. We had been fishing this place off and on for the past couple months using mostly hoppers. After getting to the river around 3:00ish, there were hundreds of grasshoppers clicking about along with the occasional PMD mayfly spinners or caddis fly.

Not seeing any fish on the surface, we tied on a couple hopper-dropper rigs and got to fishing. The fishing was slower than it had been in the past, but persistence pays off. We caught a few Yellowstone cutthroat, a lost brown trout and the occasional whitefish.

I think this river may have been straightened back in the day. Much of the river is riffled and fairly shallow. To fish it, you end up hiking quite a ways, picking the best spots to cast while walking past the rest. We usually end up covering about 2 miles per day of fishing, and this day was no different.

The Wife got into a few fish too.
After fishing for a number of hours, we finally decided to turn back and head for the truck. However, with the sun starting its descent, we still had one more super sweet run to fish before calling it a day. We started fishing the run with our hopper-dropper rig and caught a couple fish, but then it happened. All of a sudden, we began to hear the sweet slurp of big fish taking small flies on the surface.

After a mild excitement-induced heart attack--not too dissimilar from the several heart attacks I experienced watching the Oregon Ducks trying to lose to Purdue the day before--I changed my fly to a small, size 16 light cahill similar to the mayflies we saw earlier. Oh yeah, we caught fish:
The last 1 1/2 hours of fishing was amazing. I caught this toad pretty quick after changing flies and numerous others followed. Kinda wish I'd moved my ugly mits out of the way because this fish had AMAZING color.

At one point The Wife missed what she thought was a large brown trout. Knowing that there could be truly huge fish in this river I tied on a big black streamer about 5 inches long after losing my light cahill. I cast across the current and began stripping in. On the first cast, a huge fish hit my fly. A split second later, my leader was toast and the fish was free. To Karta's excitement, it still jumped a couple times trying to throw my now detached fly. Without another black streamer like the one I just lost, I tied on a white one. After watching a large fish follow it for a few casts, I finally hooked lip and landed a couple cutthroat from 15-18 inches. Not nearly as large as the fish I lost...

As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.