My Rant...

    Belive it or not, Spring is here (disregard the snow that fell yesterday). The clocks have changed and there is finally some time after work to go and play outside. The last few days, it has either been typhooning or snowing. Finally today, there was a break in the Pineapple Express that was smashing on the west coast.

    For the first time since last summer I decided to make an attempt at a post-work fishing trip. With Blackman's Lake only .8 miles from our front porch, Dug the dog and I decided to pack a fly rod, reel, some leaches, and a tennis ball in a back pack and see what the lake had to offer. Arriving to the lake about 5:30, we were apparently not the only ones that had this idea.

    Blackman's Lake offers a nice dock, a boat launch, and couple spots where one can setup a lawn chair and make some casts. There is also a park with a dock on another side of the lake, but it is too far of a treck on foot for a lazy golden retriever and his out of shape master.

Blackman's Lake

    When we arrived to the boat launch there were already 6 cars there. My first instinct was to wonder if these people had jobs since they were there so early in evening. Maybe they didn't have jobs and they were there to catch dinner. Based on the way they were all fishing, they were not going to eat dinner that day. The first two guys were in one of the lawn chair spots where three or four people could easily fish. These guys had what looked to be some sort of beach casting rods big enough to haul in a 300 lb marlin geared up with some fancy glow in the dark squig jigs. This is a rainbow trout pattern that I am not familiar with, but would like to learn more on. So we kept walking to see what the dock had to offer.

   Strolling up to nice new dock next to the boat launch, there were three guys. Each on on a different part of the dock casting accross eachother. If we would have walked onto the dock we would have been stuck in a deadly crossfire of rooster tails, kast masters, and eagle claw hooks with power-bait. We wanted nothing to do with that. So we moved on to the last little pull out.

  This spot had two monster trucks and three highschool kids warfing down Camel Lights. They were either trying to contact outterspace creatures or were listening to what the kids call "dubstep". As much as Dug and I love the smell of second hand Camels and alien sounds, we decided to move on and head back home to watch fly fishing videos and eat leftover lasagna.

    Everyone deserves to have fun playing outside, but everyone who plays outside should alo respect others who trying to do the same. Since we felt disrespected by not being allowed to fish with these people, I will NOT be the bigger person, and I will go ahead and verbally disrespect them through this bog. Blackman's lake is not exactly a hidden gem that no one knows about, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised. I just wanted to practice some casting and Dug wanted to swim and pretend he was quick enough to catch ducks. I guess this is what happens when you live in a place where it is raining 400 days a year, one sunny evening and everyone flocks to the beautiful oasis that is Blackman's Lake in March. Maybe next time...

   

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Some good ones......

Something to get you through your day...

I'm bored....

It seems like years since all the rivers in the Snohomish system closed on February 15th. Working 800 hours a week sitting behind a desk staring at a monitor while ramming fist fulls of gold fish crackers into my face, I can feel the fat rolls growing. Staring out the window at that mountains, I cant help but think about how the Stilly is only about 10 miles away from my computer chair where I sit and attempt to "mak a living". With the sresses of work and the bills that need to be paid I can't help but dream of what I would rather be doing. I'd rather take a #2 Gamakatsu octopus to the back of my neck than be couped up like that.

Five days working for the weekend and then between Feb. 15 and June, I cant go fishing on a river without driving at least two hours. On top of that, I cant help but think that March is prime time for native steelhead to be returning the "S" rivers. There used to be a C&R season on the Skagit, but then that was taken away. There are some guys that are going to try and change that on April 6th, through a movement called "Occupy Skagit". A wade in to try and bring back thie C&R season. More on that here... https://www.facebook.com/OccupySkagit

So as of late I have had to try and find other ways to take the edge off of my river cravings. Built my first fly rod on a Batson RX6 blank, have been tying steelhead flies that I cant use, and watching youtube videos. Ive enjoyed all of these things, especially rod building, but the next couple months are going to be difficult. There are talks of 6.5 million pinks returning this summer and twice the sillvers as last year, this thought is not helping my patience. I guess I will have plenty of time to clean the smoker up. Cabin fever is a disease that there is only one cure for, and unless I make the four hour drive out to the OP I will continue to sit and mark off days until June.