Independence Day 2015

The Star-Spangled Banner "Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country, should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation. Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"                       -Francis Scott Key                                             1814

Dollar Store Stripping Basket

Evenin' Folks,

Trying to get the timing down.

  Up to this point everything I've written about here on The Suburban Angler has been focused on ultralight fishing.  I love small, lightweight rods and gear and the sensitivity and reaction they get while fighting a fish.  Very recently I had the opportunity to do some saltwater fly fishing, a first for me, and the kind folks at Thomas and Thomas Fine Fly Rods loaned me one of their awesome 9' 8-weight Solar rods to try out.  I'll have a report on my first excursion later and a full review on the rod after another trip next month.  While in Florida I posted some pictures of myself attempting to cast into the surf.     I really enjoyed casting the heavy weight rod and being able to launch a big, weighted fly way further than I would ever need to in the small mountain streams that I love to fish so much.  The thing I had the most trouble with was keeping an eye on my stripped line.  It was either getting pulled down the beach by the waves or it was tangling around my bare feet in the sand or just getting caught in the surf making it difficult to shoot line out.  One of the comments I got on my Instagram picture was that I needed to find myself a stripping basket.
 I used my phone to look up stripping baskets and see what something like that might cost.  I was rather surprised to see that a plastic container and a web belt cost between $30 and $80!!!  I'm sure at some point in my life, as I'm sure I'll continue to saltwater fly fish every chance I get, I'll probably purchase a commercially available stripping basket, but this was a very tight budget trip, and even tighter budget for fishing gear.  

  The next morning we stopped at a Dollar General store to get some supplies for our day on the beach.  While looking at the snacks and drinks, I remembered that dollar stores tend to sell a lot of plastic baskets and containers.  So, after grabbing some sunscreen and a few bottles of water, I strolled over to the container aisle to see if they had anything I could make work.  

My $1.85 Dollar Store Stripping Basket.

  Behold! My Dollar Store Stripping Basket!  I found a black plastic tote that seemed about the right size, had plenty of holes for drainage and seemed like the plastic was sturdy enough to stand out on my hip, but soft enough to conform to my body at the same time.
  I pretty much always wear a leather belt, so I took my pocket knife and connected two of the holes in the tote so that my belt would slip through.  When I tightened my belt on my waist the basket snugged up to my body and seemed to be just the right height to strip line into.
  Fishing with the basket seemed to really improve my casting and really did a fantastic job of keeping the line out of my toes!  I think the basket could be a little bit larger, it seemed that I stripped the line behind the basket a few too many times, but I'm afraid if it were much larger it would be too cumbersome to be useful.  Another tip from @CaptGordon on Instagram was to glue plastic Easter egg halves into the bottom of the basket to help control the line loops even more.  I'm definitely going to do that before I take it out for the next trip.  

  I was really happy with how the Dollar Store Stripping Basket worked for me.  The way I see it, I saved about $78.15 over buying one of the fancy baskets with a well known logo on it.  But, I guess if I'm honest, I only put off spending that money for a little while longer.

  I hope you're all doing well.

     Tight lines and good improvised gear,

          -Nick

Frogtown Creek: My First Trout on a Fly!

Mornin' Folks,
  Today I thought I'd share some pictures with you.  These are all cell phone pictures, so the quality isn't the greatest.  The weekend before last I spent a great evening visiting with my grandparents up in the North Georgia mountains.  I got up and left early Sunday morning to do some small, mountain stream fly fishing.  I had yet to catch a trout on the fly, so I was hoping that this would be the day.  I stopped first at Helton Creek Falls and fished the pool at the bottom of the lower falls.  After about 10 minutes I started seeing some fish moving in the pool and showing interest in my Prince Nymph.  Just when a trout looked like he was going to take my fly, I heard a loud thud behind me and the fish took off.  I turned around to see a rather clumsy looking "photographer" had come down the stairs behind me and was jumping from rock to rock taking pictures.  The brush was just too thick to head down stream, mostly because of the cut Chestnut trees, and the "photographer" didn't appear to be leaving anytime soon, so I decided to pack it in and try to find another stream. 
  I'm a little fuzzy on the stream access laws of Georgia and it seemed like every nice place I found to fish had a house sitting next to it.  So, I headed down to DeSoto Falls Recreation Area in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. 
  In the past, I've hiked the trail of DeSoto Falls, but set out too late to make it to the falls themselves, but I was surprised to see a 24-site campground with shower and restrooms in the recreation area.  I'm going to keep that in mind for a later camping trip. 
  The banks of Frogtown Creek were pretty overgrown.  Stream access wasn't bad, but I couldn't cast from the bank.  The only waders I have are neoprene chest waders, which are way too uncomfortable for a warm, late summer day so they were left at home.  Frogtown Creek is a freestone stream so I thought I'd just rock hop.  I was wearing waterproof boots, so figured I could walk through the shallows.  After I slipped off the first rock I decided the day was warm enough to just wet-wade! 
  I had a great time fishing this stream.  There seemed to be a fair amount of fish in the water.  I got a lot of splashy refusals and a couple missed bites.  I didn't see any fish rising, and no insect hatch that I could detect, so I tried to stick with the nymph style flies.  The fish seemed interested, but I just couldn't get a hard take.  After catching my last small nymph in the trees, I tied on the only small fly I had left.  I'm not exactly sure what the fly was, I think it came in an assortment pack that I got as a gift years ago, but I think it was a deer hair Caddis fly in about a size 18 or so.  I would've posted a picture of this fly, but I lost it not terribly long after tying it on.  Makes me wonder if I tried hooking trees if I'd catch more fish...
  I wish I had tied on the Caddis sooner!  On my second cast next to a boulder in the middle of the stream I got a big splashy strike, but I missed the hook set.  Most of the reading that I've done on trout fishing says that trout spook very easily and if you recast to the same fish you can scare it off.  I think I probably cast to this fish a half dozen times and he splashed at it every time.  He finally took the fly and I had my first trout on my fly rod!  This guy put up a way better fight than the little bluegills I've been catching in Lake Lanier.  I fought him for a few minutes, reveling in the bend of my 2 weight TFO rod.  Since the water really wasn't that cold, I didn't want to fight the fish too long and risk over stressing him.  So I brought him to hand, dropped him a couple times, but I got my picture.  I had finally caught my first trout on a fly, a very nice little rainbow, about 7 inches long and full of energy.
  Having caught my first trout, and promptly losing the fly I caught him on, I decided it was getting late and I had homework and things waiting for me at home.    I look forward to camping at DeSoto Falls, hiking to the falls and doing some more fishing in Frogtown Creek.  And I can't wait to catch another trout!!!

Helton Creek Falls in Union County.

All of the American Chestnut trees were cut down along the trail due Chestnut Blight.

This is why they were cut down, otherwise they would fall. This stump was easily 3 ft. across.

The lower falls of Helton Creek Falls.

Frogtown Creek just below DeSoto Falls at the DeSoto Falls Recreation Area.

My 6 ft. Temple Forks Outfitters 2 weight rod.  Perfect for the small Frogtown Creek.

Further downstream.  Trout don't live in unattractive places.

My first trout on a fly!  Not huge, but he sure was fun. Definitely hooked now, I can't wait to do some more coldwater fly fishing!

Skunked.....again!

Good morning folks,
  It's been a little while since my last post, but I have a good reason. Much like the rest of the country, Georgia has been getting an awful lot of rain lately. Since my last post, I've only been fishing twice.  I got skunked both times. I've been spending some time learning to tie flies and packing for my upcoming move to a new apartment.  We've been pretty busy at work recently and on top of that, there's only a few weeks left until school starts back.  Where did the summer go?
 I took the kayak out to Lake Lanier the Saturday before last.  The morning was very overcast, there was a pretty stiff wind on the lake and the water had a pretty good chop to it.  I had my 2 weight TFO rod and fought the wind with every cast.  The fish must have been down deeper than I could get with my floating line. After 3 hours on the water I only had two soft strikes. I didn't hook up once. I threw every fly I had that my two weight could handle. Then started throwing the flies that it couldn't!  Finally, I tied on this big, black streamer-/woolly bugger-type fly that I bought too long ago to remember and noticed bass nipping at its tail. I'm a fan and follower of the teachings of Tom Rosenbauer and the Orvis Fly Fishing Guide Podcast and one of his most often reiterated pieces of advice is that if the fish are showing interest, but make a last second refusal, change size first!  Well, that's all well and good, but I didn't have another size of that pattern. After about 20 minutes of watching the small fish try to school with my fly, I paddled back to the launch and called it a day. Skunked. But, with a plan.
  I spent the next few days listening to the rain fall and researching fly patterns and tying recipes (when I wasn't at work, anyway).  I decided to try my hand at tying up some woolly buggers, but most of the recipes I could find were for larger hooks, sized 6 through 10.  I wanted something smaller.  I determined that I could follow the instructions I had found, and just scale it down to a smaller hook.  Then, I stumbled upon instructions for tying wooly buggers on a size 14 hook and I decided that it could be done, pretty easily.  I bought the needed materials (I thought tying flies was supposed to be cheaper than buying them?) and spent an evening at the tying vise.  I'm a beginner at fly tying, so it took me a few hours to come up with a half dozen flies, but it's a very easy pattern to tie and probably a very good one for a beginner like me to get started with.   I've read that black, brown and white are the three preferred colors for wooly buggers, so that's what I tied.  I didn't use bead heads, but did put lead under the body to weight the fly down.
  So, armed with a half dozen, newly tied mini-buggers, I hit the lake again this past Sunday. The weather seemed a bit more cooperative, big clouds about, but mostly sunny and not nearly as breezy as the weekend before.  I spoke to a couple gentlemen bank fishing and learned that the fish weren't biting.  In the two hours they had been there, they only caught one fish a piece, both catfish on bait.  I pushed off from the boat launch and started to paddle back to one of my most productive spots so far.  I stopped and fished some along the way, but got no bites.  I was amazed at how few fish I could see in the water.  Normally, it seems, you can see bream and small bass swimming amongst the rocks in the shadows.  I paddled into a grassy area to fish around a fallen tree that has produced good bites in the past.  Not even a bite.  At one point, the best fish I had seen in a while showed themselves.  In about 2 feet of water there swam three carp that were each, easily, 18" long.  Swimming directly under and around my kayak, with I good net, I could have grabbed them!  They showed absolutely no interest in my size 14 wooly buggers.

Size 14 Mini Bugger

  I paddled on to fish around the rock dam where I've had some luck before.  I pulled up into a small inlet where I've caught a few bream in the past, and dropped my anchor right in the middle of the mouth.  From this spot I could fish almost the whole inlet.  There's a sloping dirt bank on the left and a steeper rip-rap stone bank to the right.  I was starting to see some more fish swimming around, so I thought, surely, I'd have some luck here.  The water was nice and clear and smooth and I could really see the action of my mini bugger as I stripped it in.  I was working it in every way I could think of, long fast strips, short slow strips, short fast strips, long slow strips, you name it, I tried it.  I would occasionally see small bass following the fly, but no bites.
  In the three hours I was on the lake fishing, I got two soft, but splashy, strikes.  I had things to do at home, so wasn't able to put in any more time.  By the time I made it back to the car, I had paddled almost 5 miles.  You tend to feel paddling that kind of distance more when the fish aren't biting.  I loaded up and went home.
  I got skunked, two weekends in a row.  See now why I haven't posted?  So, what have I learned?  If you're not going to catch fish, you should at lease learn something about fishing, right?  I need to do some more research, but I'm guessing that due to the cloud cover over the lake the fish must have been holding deeper than I could reach with my mini bugger and floating line.  At one point I had crimped on a small split shot to my line.  That seemed to garner the most attention.  I think I'm going to spend some time tying some more mini buggers, but this time I might try some tungsten bead heads.  I also might have to look into investing in a spare spool and some sink tip line.  One of the purposes of the original wooly bugger was to imitate leeches.  From what I've read, freshwater leeches tend to prefer living in and around rocks.  I need to tie my mini buggers so they will get down into the crevices of the rocks and can be worked in and around.  The buggers I tied had 5-7 wraps of .015 lead wire, but with the chenille and marabou it just wasn't enough to take the fly down more than a foot and a half or so.  Even to reach that shallow depth required me to wait probably a full minute.  Being that I'm still new to fly fishing, coming off of years of fishing Texas rigged worms on spinning gear, I'm not used to waiting so long for my lure to reach the bottom.  A bit more weight on the fly and a sink tip line might just do the trick.
  Hopefully soon I'll have some caught fish to share with you.  I'll post a photo tutorial on the mini buggers that I tied.  I'm still working to get them right and practice my tying skills, but you folks can critique me on how I'm doing so far.
  Thanks for reading.  Tight lines and Happy fishing,
      -Nick




Jim Misiura - Wooly Bugger Tutorial
Tim Cammisa - Wooly Bugger Tutorial
The Orvis Fly Fishing Guide Podcast

Today's Equipment

Flyrod: Temple Forks Outfitters 6'6" 2wt
Fly Reel: White River Fly Shop 3/4
Line: Rio 3wt WF
Flies:
    #14 Mini Wooly Buggers asst. colors

Knife:
Kershaw Ken Onion Scallion