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June 9, 2008: (Fishing in Missouri) 
Thought I'd send you a couple of pictures from my fishing trip in Missouri. (Click on the "Photo Gallery" link on the left to view the pictures). Well, I found a "Blue Ribbon" Trout stream called Crane Creek. This was a spring-fed creek with a lot of limestone and it was supposed to hold a healthy trout population with a size limit of 18". I thought this would be a great stream. Anyway, I fished it from about 6:30pm to 8:30pm and caught 4 wild Rainbows, The fish in the photo was my largest, and yes...., that is my Thumb in the photo. 

It really was a beautiful stream, with lots of holes and a good volume of clear, cold water, but I understand that they had some major flooding in the area a couple of months ago and I have to believe that this washed most of the fish down the creek. There were numerous large trees down across the creek, and the woods were extremely thick with undergrowth, which made getting around pretty difficult. Most of my fishing was in the upper reaches of the creek and I did try an area about 6 miles downstream, but the creek really had a lot of water and it was a little difficult to navigate in hip boots, not to mention you couldn't get around on the bank. 

Oh well, I'll try to get out again next time and hit a different area.
--Larry Heimes--

June 6, 2008 (Seneca Lake, New York) 
John Gaulke guides on the Finger Lakes in NY and since reading his reports for a while, I have been interested in going with him on a fly fishing outing. My friend Jack and I met John at the Watkins Glen marina on the south end of Seneca Lake.

We would be mainly targeting northern pike. We began on the west side and drifted with the slight southerly winds. He threw in a wind sock when began to move too fast. I was casting a chartreuse and white Clouser with a bite tippet on a sink tip in 3-7 feet of water ( I never changed that fly all day!.. although I had to change the bite tippet). Jack was using a full sinking line off the back of the boat with a red and white "leech", so he was in a little deeper water. It wasn't too long before I hooked the first Northern. 

The water is nice and clear so you can easily see your fly and the fish approaching it. We found it was necessary to strip and pause more in the colder water (49-50F) than spots where the water was warmer (upper 50s). I got 1 or 2 more pike and a jumbo perch before Jack got the hang of it with his first northern. We moved up the lake looking for prime spots. We'd get 1 or 2 pike then move on. Most of the fish were in the 25-28" range but well fed. John has been successful jigging for lake trout so we took a break from fly casting to give it a try. John located bait fish in 40-50 ft and then we dropped 1 oz jigs to the bottom. It worked! Jack landed 3 nice lakers and I managed 1 in about an hour’s time. 

We returned to fly fishing for pike on the East side. We hit one spot where each of us got 2 or 3 and missed a couple before moving on. I ended up landing around 12 pike, 2 pickerel and 1 perch on the fly. Jack got 8 pike. It was a whole bunch of fun. I will definitely do that again. 
--Lance Morien--

May 2, 2008:  (Waneta Lake, New York - Muskie on the Fly) 
After finishing a few chores at our cottage it was time to take the boat out and flyfish the shoreline for a couple of hours using my new Loomis 6 wt. I was catching a mixed bag of crappies, sunfish, perch and an occasional smallmouth when I hooked what was definitely a larger fish. When I gained some ground and got a look at what it was, wow, a muskie!! He took off on a run straight away from the boat. I did not have a net, and did not want to play this fish too long. I got him in closer and this time he went under the boat. Finally, he was tired enough to bring him in so I could break the line close to the fly that was in the corner of his mouth. I figured that was better than trying to handle that toothy guy. I estimated he was 36-40 inches. There are a fair number of muskies in Waneta Lake and guys do catch them in the 40-44" range. I caught him on jig style hook tied with pink sililegs off the end and estaz body using 3x tippet. 
--Lance Morien--

July 7, 2007: Just got back from our trip, and figured I'd post a report. First a big thanks to David, Guy, Bill, and Raquel at Kern River Fly Fishing. Those guys were extremely helpful. We took a day trip with David to find some Goldens and had a great time. They're truly running a class act, if you are an out-of-towner, definitely look into a trip with these guys, or just stop by the shop to gather the essentials and get some great advice. 

So, as I said, our first day (Memorial Day) we spent with David searching for Goldens in the meadows just South of Sherman's pass. The fishing was great, and we managed both Goldens and some Brownies. The weather was beautiful (although probably warmer than normal?) all week. Water is low and clear.

Our second day we spent wandering around Troy Meadow. We caught our fill of Goldens and headed down to the South Fork and Kennedy Meadow. Water there is very low, but I managed a nice sized rainbow (15+") near the campground. He wasn't much of a fighter, and I suspect he was a stockie. After the zoo of Memorial Day, not seeing a single person in either of these locations was a pleasant surprise. 

Third day we decided to try Forks of the Kern. Hiking down to the forks is a no brainer. The North Fork Kern is still too high to wade, but you can swing streamers and chuck nymphs if you are so inclined. I'm a sucker for dry fly action so... for most of the day we worked upstream on the Little Kern. The Little Kern is wet wadeable, and the Kern River Rainbows there made some nice runs. Per Guy's advice, we decided to stick around the Forks until around 4:30PM in order to avoid climbing back out in the heat of the day. This was a good idea since even at 4:30 it was a hot dry hike back to the trailhead. Despite several warnings, we did not see a single rattlesnake. (we were sorta disappointed... ) We also did not see any other fisherpeople. We did meet a couple with their 3 horse pack train coming up the trail as we headed down, and the pack station was dropping off some rafters at the island just as we were leaving, but other than that, we had the entire Forks to ourselves. 

Fourth day (Thursday) we headed back up to the plateau and hiked down to Casa Veija Meadow from the Black Rock trailhead. Once again we had the place to ourselves. We didn't see a soul on the trail, or at the Meadow. We only fished the Meadow for a couple of hours. There was a mixture of both Goldens and Rainbows in Ninemile Creek, with the bows tending to be slightly bigger 9-10" tops. Between my wife and I we caught an obscene amount of trout. (yes we counted, but is the number really that important?) Let's just say that every other cast was a strike, and every other strike was a caught trout somewhere between 3 and 8 inches. If we walked more than 200 yards. between us, in 2 hours I'd be surprised. What was working? Well...anything in a 14 or 16 that resembled a bug in some way...I'm sure 12's and 18's would have worked too...if hiking and fishing is your thing, then this is probably the trip for you. If you are truly ambitious you could hike all the way down Ninemile Creek to the old hot spring resort area, but it's a long day so you'd need to start early and remember it's a grueling hike back up to the trailhead. This would be an especially difficult hike if you live at sea level. 

Fifth day (Friday), we hadn't planned on doing any fishing, but the Little Kern Golden's kept calling and we hadn't gotten any when we were at the Forks so... we decided to head up to the Golden Trout Pack Station and took a short day ride through Loggy Meadow down into Click's Creek . Fished just long enough to catch some Little Kern Goldens and round out the Grand Slam. 

All and all a great week of fishing. We weren't really focused on the bigger fish for this trip, so we'll probably need to go back and fish the North Fork when the water is a little lower. If bigger fish is something you're after, a pack trip into the North Fork when the water is slightly lower seems like an excellent idea. I can't imagine that you would struggle to find 18+" fish above the Forks. The water there just says "big stupid fish"....just the kind I like...
 --Troy Dunn--

May 25, 2007: Hey all, it's been a while since the last western region update. Craig come out last week. Mid May was supposed to be before run-off kicked in, but the height of spring run-off turned out to be 2 days after he got here, and the Bitterroot was overflowing with chocolatey ovaltine. Blame global warming, I suppose. In any event, we adjusted fishing plans accordingly, and got into some fish despite mud season. 

At the airport, waiting for baggage to arrive, Craig and I admired a full body mount of a mountain lion attacking a mountain goat, jaws firmly clamped around its throat. We wondered what Elaine would say if he brought it home as a souvenir. The airport also features a stuffed grizzly bear. Standing next to it, eyeballing its formidable teeth and claws, is a reminder that maybe you'd just as soon not encounter one in the wild. 

We headed up towards the MO River for a couple days of float fishing. Flowing through a series of three upstream reservoirs, the MO is basically runoff-proof. On the way there, we stopped at Browns Lake to see if we could catch some of the whopper rainbows that the place is famous for. Being about 500 acres, fishing from a floating device is the way to go at Browns. I'm not sure that Craig was completely on board with the float tubing thing at first... 

But it all turned out good.... 

Things slowed down a bit in the afternoon, though.... 

We then spent 2 days floating the MO. We stayed at, ate at, and rented a boat from The Trout Shop in Craig, MT (appropriately enough). The Trout Shop is a first-rate place, owned by a couple of really cool guys, I highly recommend it (http://www.thetroutshop.com/). Day 1 we floated Craig to Mid-Canon and day 2 we floated Wolf Creek to Craig. As it happened, the blue wing olive hatch kicked in good both mornings at about 9:00 am. And as is often the case early season, the fish saw no reason to rise, but spent the whole day filling their bellies subsurface, keying on nymphs and emergers. For a couple of bobber chuckers like us, that worked out fine. Overall, the fishing ranged from pretty darn good to over the top amazing. We hooked, and mostly lost, quite a few fish. MO fish tend to run big and fight hard, the typical encounter lasted about 2 seconds; bite, strike, violent twisting jump, gone. But we did manage to land a few and came away grinning.... 

Come Wednesday morning, we were standing in the Trout Shop parking lot looking to hand in our room key, and a couple guys come roaring into the parking lot driving an old school bus. A sturdy Mennonite-looking guy jumped out and approached Craig and I. He was wearing a dusty black Grand Ol' Opry style-suit, a black cowboy hat, had the beard but no mustache thing going, and exuded a "I might just punch you in the nose for no apparent reason" sort of aura. He asked Craig, "Ya'll need any flowers?", and motioned to the school bus that was filled with, of all things, hanging baskets full of flowers. "No thanks". "Ya'll goin fishin then?" "Yep". "Gonna drink some bear?" "Yep". "Alright then, ya'll go drink some bear". Seeing no other potential customers, he hopped back into the school bus and they roared off, presumably to their next carefully chosen marketing location. I got the feeling that the guy either drank lots of bear or none at all. 

So we headed south on route 200 and stopped at Browns Lake again. Once again, we caught some fish but none of the honkers that are supposed to be there. The place must be filthy with edibles though, as even the little rainbows are nice, sporting small heads and tails and bulbous bodies. The wind kicked up pretty good for a while and we witnessed a bunch of birds, swallows or swifts I guess, feeding like fish in a stream. They hovered in place in the wind, and dodged side to side to pick off wind-blown bugs. Pretty cool to watch. 

I had to go back to work on Thursday and Friday, so I sent Craig up the East and West Fork of the Bitterroot in search of fishable water. He came back reporting that the streams were ripping and of seeing bighorn sheep. We tried to fish my favorite side-channel of the Bitterroot Friday evening, despite 3000 cfs of water being in a 800 cfs river. It turned out the only spot that was any good was an irrigation ditch off the main river, sort of anticlimactic. 

Saturday was Craig's return flight and the official opening of MT trout season (smaller creeks open), so I dropped him at the Missoula airport and tried to fish Lolo Creek on the way home. It's a smaller stream, didn't look like too bad, maybe a little high but very clear, until I stepped in it and almost got washed away. I ended up spending more time putting on and taking off my waders that I did fishing that day. 

Not wanting to give up too easy, I went back up to Browns on Sunday and fished the opposite side of the cove from where Craig and I had fished. After a slow start and then slipping and falling down a grassy bank and banging up my knee, I stepped in it good, ended up with five rainbows over 18" including a 25" ("Hey Mo, I got a monsta!"), caught on a size 16 zebra midge. Of course my camera was in the truck that day. 

So that's the update. We had a good old time, and ended up seeing quite a few critters along the way: a herd of elk, deer out the wazoo, a lone moose galumphing across route 200, bighorn sheep, bald and golden eagles, muskrats and beavers on the MO, a herd of pronghorns, any number of unidentified birds, and maybe some other critters I've forgot to mention. By the time that Jethro, Brian, and Coop get here in July, the water will have dropped, things will have changed, and we'll probably end up in completely different places to wet a line. Enjoy the holiday weekend, and tight lines....
---Scott Ziegenfuss---

March 24 - 31: Jerry Bottcher (of the Hungry Trout) and I spent a week in Belize and, without a doubt, it's a great place to go. We stayed in an island 14 miles off the coast. The island is called Water Caye and it's only 12 acres in size. The place we stayed at is called "The Blue Marlin". 

We booked with an outfit called Belize Flats Fishing  but you don't have to. You can book directly with the Blue Marlin Lodge.

Our accommodations were more than excellent considering we were in an offshore small island. The lodge generates its own electricity and purifies its own water. Rooms are clean and air-conditioned. The main lodge has a well-stocked bar (I was kidding when I asked for a Frangelico cordial as an after dinner drink. I was pleasantly surprised when they brought it to me). The food was plentiful and excellent. For dinner you always got both a meat and a fish entree, vegetables, salad and dessert. We even got filet mignon and lobster thermidor. Breakfast and lunch were excellent and plentiful. The morning coffee on the other hand was the worse coffee I have ever tasted. It comes from Guatemala and they roast it themselves. (When I go back I'll bring my own). Also, if you drink milk with your coffee, get used to evaporated milk.

We had a great guide by the name of Ivan. Our main target was permit and he must have spotted 70 a day, some of them in groups, so figure on 38-40 casteable situations a day. Without a doubt, permit must be the most challenging fish on earth. Either they spook, ignore your fly or follow it and decide not to take it at the last minute. I did not catch any but I certainly had the opportunities to do so. If you like bird hunting like I do, you'll love fishing for permit. I'll definitely be going back.

On a couple of occasions, during the heat of the mid-day sun, we spent a couple of hours fishing for tarpon in a cove. We could see the fish break water, but again no takes.

I did manage to get a couple of bonefish and (get this) a crappie-sized permit that came out of nowhere while I was casting to a school of bonefish.

One day, while we were traveling to another flat, we saw birds working the deeper water. We hurried there and we could see fish and baitfish jumping all over. I used a Clouser and caught several bonito and mackerel, one skipjack, a blue runner and two yellow tail something.

We were lucky enough to see a manatee with her baby and also a salt-water crocodile (there are no alligators in Belize). Also, a small island called Bird Caye that teems with frigate birds and boobies.

All in all, I loved it and I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.
---Gil Padovani---

March 2007: Hi All - Two full weeks in MT are behind me now, and I'm beginning to live something of a normal life again after months of being engrossed in this relocation thing. The sale of my house in Audubon closed the other day, so I guess I'm a Montanatuckian for real now. At this point, it's down to things like getting Montana license plates and a new car insurance policy, organizing the house (!), and so on. Over lunch one day last week, I ran up to Stevensville ("up the road a piece") to get a Montana drivers license. On the way I saw a sign on a small business; instead of "Open" or "Closed", the options were "Yep" or "Nope". Little things like that remind me where I am. 

Before I forget, for those of you who haven't seen it, The Mist Net Chronicles is a blog that is authored and consistently updated by the best writer that I know personally, our very own Matt Freeman. Never mind that I don't know all that many writers personally, Mist Net is really good stuff, see it here for top-notch daily chuckles. 

The weather here in western MT continues to be very hospitable, highs in the 50s or even 60s here in the valley. The word on the street is that the mountain snowpack is ~90% of average this year, and so there will be adequate water for both irrigators and fish this summer. Today is a wind storm, dust blowing every which way, and it looks like it might even rain, which is a pretty major event around here, worthy of much discussion and head scratching. 

So this past Friday afternoon, I got the following e-mail which was addressed to all GSK Hamilton employees, it said: "It's BEER FRIDAY! Join us after work at the Bitterroot Brewery for a beer on GSK!" I figured this was some sort of ploy in which the new guy (that would be me) gets duped into paying the bar tab for 37 coworkers on a Friday night. But, it turned out to be legit, every 3rd Friday is Beer Friday, and beers are on GSK down at the Bitterroot Brewery. That sounded like a fair deal, so I stopped in after work for a few beers with my coworkers. 

Talk turned to fishing at the pub and I ended up with plans to float the Missouri River on Sunday with a couple of characters named Pete and Mike. Pete is a coworker here, originally from London, he transferred out here from GSK's site in Parsippany, NJ last year, undoubtedly dreaming of big honking trout. Mike is a local outfitter who owns the first fly shop that you see coming into town. We met at Mike's shop at 6:00 am Sunday, piled into his 260,000 mile old truck ("just got a new transmission, runs like a champ"), hitched up Mike's driftboat, and headed north. We went through Missoula and stopped for groceries, beer, breakfast, and gas in four different places, we must have spent an hour farting around. After all provisions were finally stocked, we headed up route 200 towards Great Falls, along the Blackfoot River Valley (of "A River Runs Through It" fame). All I can say is holy schmoly, what an astoundingly beautiful place; mile after mile of national forest and ranchland, through the grizzly bear preserve where a guy went missing last year and 'got et' by a bear, through Lincoln, MT, former home base to one Ted Kazinski (I think that's right), better known as the unibomber, along the Blackfoot Recreation corridor, with pull offs and campgrounds all along the river, over the Continental divide at Rogers Pass, and down into Craig, MT, on the headwaters of Missouri River. 

Being from St Louis, the MO River is sort of near and dear as runs into the Mississippi River in St Louis. Of course the upper river looks little different than the mile-wide swath of muddy water that I used to see. It's pretty much a smaller scale version of the Bighorn, complete with rocky buttes, rattlesnakes, sagebrush, clear blue water, weed beds, and big honkin' trout. It turned out that the water temperature was 37 degrees and the fish were pretty much still glued to the bottom in a stupor. Although the air warms up early here, the streams do not, as they are mostly fed by snow melt. Olives pretty much don't hatch until April no matter what. Anyway, having read up on the MO a bit, I'd learned that the fly of choice for early season was a pink scud. You heard right, a pink scud. So I tied up three of them the nigh before, stashed them in my fly box, and figured they'd never get wet. 

We stopped at a local tackle shop in Craig (a story unto itself), arranged for a shuttle, bought a few odds and ends, and finally launched at the Wolf Creek bridge by the crack of 11. Within 50 yards, we'd run aground once, hooked 3 fish, and then Mike got tangled up with the landing net, anchor line, camera, and a flopping fish, and managed to break a (his) fly rod. It was a pretty eventful start, sort of Three Stoogesesque. 

But, we got things squared away and had a great day on the water. The weather was warm and overcast, but the wind was howling, as it's prone to do in that part of state. I'll also point out that the wind was from the south, typically bad new for the fishing off the Jersey coast (and maybe here too). I can't say the fishing was fast, we had to work hard for them, but we ended the day with about a dozen landed, several missed or lost, and a number of good sized whities landed too. And don't you know, the dreaded pink scud was the fly. I fished one with a serendipity dropper at first, caught three in a row on the scud, lost the dropper somewhere along the line, and never replaced it. 

So while we didn't have a banner catching day, it was really good to float and fish the MO for the first time. And I heard along the way about a place on the river between Hauser and Holter Lakes, near the mouth of Beaver Creek, where rattlesnakes are abundant, that's hard to access, is lightly fished, and gets a run of big rainbows from Holter Lake in March and April. Hmm... sounds like my kind of place, I might have a report from there in the next edition. Tight lines to all.... 
---Scott Ziegenfuss---

January 2, 2007: I had an awesome weekend fishing this weekend. I had read about the "trout spill" on the Tulley below Meyerstown, and John Burgos and I decided to go check it out on Saturday. We wandered around the area for about 30 minutes before we found the right spot. It was hard to miss, there were at least 10 fishermen there throughout the day, but I must admit the fishing was worth it. We probably landed about 30 fish over the course of about 4 hours. I landed a 17" rainbow which had me rethinking the 3 wt. rod. Almost all of the fish were caught on a Mickey Finn. I wasn't able to get anything on dries, and had only marginal success with nymphs (but I'm pretty impatient when it comes to sub-surface fishing.)

I got a new fly reel for Christmas, so on Sunday while running errands I bought some new line and backing and proceeded to load up. It was about 3 in the afternoon, but I just had to go play with the newly configured reel. I raced over to Pickering Creek and pulled into my favorite parking area just as another fisherman was lacing up his boots. "Going upstream or downstream" I enquired. 

"Not really sure, why you asking." he replied. 
"Well… I figured whichever way you go, I'll go the other" I noticed he had tied on a huge streamer pattern. 
"Well, in that case, I suppose I'll try downstream" He trudged off toward the footbridge. 

I laced up the boots, locked the truck and tied on a #14 Royal Humpy. Wasn't expecting to catch any fish, just wanted to play with the new reel and cast the new combo. I started off in the flat pool just above the footbridge. I noticed a swirl off to my left. The wife and dog were watching from the bridge. I made a long effortless cast and watched as the humpy meandered in the current. Much to my surprise, a little 9" rainbow nailed the humpy. Not much of a test for the new reel, but I did get some applause from the wife (who was quite pleased with the present bearing fruit so early), and a woof from the dog. (not sure what that was about…). They proceeded across the footbridge, on their hike, and I continued to wade upstream. I didn't see any more rises, but the long pool with a deep cut to the right, and overhanging branches seemed like the perfect place for the opportunistic trout to hang. I worked about 50 yds. Upstream and managed a 10" brownie. Not bad for an hour of fishing, 2 trout on a single dry on New Year's Eve. I was quite happy about those last two trout of the year.
Troy Dunn

May 19-22, 2006: As in the previous years, I spent a long week-end (Fri-Mon) at the Hungry Trout Motor Inn and Restaurant in Wilmington, NY and on the famous Ausable River. It rained a lot so not many of our usual group showed up. Allan Sandler got there on Thursday and did excellent. He started off with six big trout in a little over a half hour. On Friday and Saturday, the water was high and almost unwadeable but there were plenty of fish along the banks. With not more than 8 people allowed on the Dream Mile you really have much of that stretch to yourself. 

As you may be aware, the owner of the Dream Mile instituted new regulations for fishing his water: A fifty dollar daily rod fee and not more than eight people on the water at any one time.  Some of the guys signed up for a day or two on the Dream Mile and the rest of the time on public access or at the Brookie Pond. People that opted not to fish the Dream Mile got a reduced rate on their room and board for each day they didn't fish there. All in all, I think the new arrangements with the Hungry Trout worked out for the best.
Gil Padovani

November 3 and 4, 2005: How many 70 degree days will we see in November? If you didn't wet a line this weekend you'd better have a really good excuse...I had none, and so...

Fished Pickering on Friday, hooked up with a nice Brownie (about 12"). Most of the stocked trout are still hanging around the footbridge where they were probably all thrown in. I caught a few trout there on a royal humpy, and if you stand on the bridge you can see about 30 of them lined up from about 10 yards upstream of the bridge to about 15-20 yards into the pool below the bridge. I decided to play the 12" down to the lower edge of the pool and release him over the rock ledge down to the next pool. (So at least 1 trout is now in the rest of the stretch)

Saturday I decided to try Tulpehocken Creek since Joe said he was slaying 'em there last week. It was fairly crowded below Reber's Bridge so I decided to see what was happening above that point. The stretch above was empty except for one lone fisherman working the inlet to the pool just upstream of the bridge. I worked the longer slower stretch upstream. I managed to find a group of trout sipping midges about 70 yards further upstream. I had quite a few takes on the copper john I was tailing behind my royal humpy, but the only hook up of the day came on a flashback scud pattern, a small skunk chaser, but I'll take him. Even though the trout were rising for about 3 hours, I never got the hook set on a single dry (everything from elk hair down to rs-2.)
Troy Dunn

October 17 2005: Left the house on Thursday the 6th around 10AM, arrived at B&B in the Catskills for a little R and R (it's not my fault that the B&B just happened to have a private stretch on the Willowemoc) On the way to the B&B I picked up a NY State fishing license (valid through next fishing season). Went down to the stream around 4:30 to discover an extremely parched reach filled with suckers, no trout. Oh well, it looked like my hiking and fishing week just turned into a hiking only week. Then came the rains that ended the drought of 2005. By Friday night, the Willowemoc was bank full and still rising. In the morning on Sunday before breakfast I went out to check out the stream, it had begun to clear, and I saw two hefty brownies battling over some choice real estate near a deep undercut by a large tree. I was unable to wade across the creek, and decided to wait until evening to give it a go. 

That evening I hooked a 16-18" brown. I was standing in about 4' of pretty swift current screaming for my wife to bring the camera while I tried to edge closer to shore, meanwhile this trout is swimming around me in circles going nuts. I was concerned that I might get swept downstream if I moved to quickly so I was cautiously moving toward shore when I glanced over for a split second to get my bearings, I turned back around and the trout was gone. That was the only trout I caught on the Willowemoc. The Beaverkill never really dropped enough to fish before it was time to go home, but I did get a chance to hike into Trout Lake. (about 2 miles, also known as Cables Pond on some maps). I caught a couple of small 10" but pretty brookies on this lake that were rising during the brief 20 minutes of sunshine that occurred that week.

I returned home Wednesday night to discover that all but Joe King and I had dropped out of the newly established annual DJL Central PA Fall Fishing Trip. No worries, just more trout for us I figured.

Joe and I set out from Phoenixville around 7:30AM on Friday for Fishing Creek (the one in Lamar). We were on stream and hooked up with a couple of trout before lunch. After a brief lunch, we moved on and fished our way up to the fish hatchery. We caught a fair number of trout along the way, and called it day around 6. We found our hotel in Bellefonte and hashed out our strategy for the rest of the weekend. On Saturday we would make our way out to the Little J. and Sunday we would forego the 1 hour ride back out to Little J. and fish Spring Creek instead (about 1 mile from the hotel.) 

We fished the Little J. all day on Saturday. Joe started hooking up pretty early as he changed from "dry and dropper" to nymph rather quickly. The "rookie" on the other hand continued banging away with the dry and dropper combination for the better part of the morning. I managed a nice sized rainbow out of the reach below the gorge area, but really didn't have as much success as my "more experienced" counterpart. 

In the afternoon, we hiked into the main gorge section and fish from the 1st railroad bridge upstream to just past the 2nd. I finally gave up on the dry and dropper combo after much cursing, many lost flies and two leader changes (it was real windy and the rookie wasn't cuttin' the mustard on punching through the wind). Just above the 2nd bridge the fly fishing gods smiled on me and I started nailing 10" browns on an Isonychia nymph that I had purchased at FCO Thursday night. I was hoping to catch something bigger, but I was pulling 1 out about every 10 casts, so I was not complaining. I was about 100 casts and 10 fish into my little massacre when Joe appeared high above on the bank to let me know we were leaving. 

Sunday was another interesting day. We got up early so we could hit the College Diner in State College for Grilled Stickies and other breakfast fare, and still be on stream by sunup. Being a Penn Stater really paid off on this trip as we had two successful breakfast hookups without a hitch (now that was money well spent... HA!) Once on Spring Creek, I started out with a midge pattern since that was the only thing I saw around the creek. There were a few rises in some of the slack water so I thought I was going to hook up quickly. None of these trout were interested in the midge. I switched over to a searching pattern, I didn't have my trusty Royal Wulff in a 20 so I tied on a #20 Royal Humpy. Joe was walking up the bank behind me as I set the hook on my second cast.... missed it... :"whoa" I heard from the bank behind me. I caught a handful of fish (one real pretty Brown all decked out in spawning apparel). 

Joe meanwhile was getting some serious attention from the skunk. I told him I was using 7x Frog Hair tippet with the #20 Humpy and suggested somethin' with some red in it. No luck. I pointed Joe in the direction of the last pool I had last seen rising trout in and told him I would see him back at the car in an hour or so. Meanwhile I was off in search of "larger" trout. I had yet to hook anything larger than 12" the whole weekend. I worked my way back down to a large deep pool near the car, and found some rising trout. I had some takes but no hookups. As I waded back upstream a few yards toward the car I looked down at my feet and noticed a big lunker brown staring up at me as if to say "not today pal." Oh well, Joe was back at the car with a big smile on his face, seems he was able to chase the skunk away in a pool I had worked several times to no avail using his patented streamer pattern he calls "the bullet". 

So all in all, an excellent trip. We even got to watch the second half of the PSU vs. Michigan game at a crowded bar in Alexandria. Great game, stinky outcome (never say one second doesn't matter).
Troy Dunn

Tuesday, October 4, 2005: Not sure if Capt Jethro is going to send out a report today, he's busy tying flies to restock depleted boxes and getting ready to go out tomorrow, so I thought I'd send a report out. Matt and I fished with Jeff this past weekend for two days, in the Sandy Hook/Breezy Point area. Once again, many lessons learned... 

Summary for Saturday, "turn up the suck". We basically went for a long boat ride. Nice weather, plenty of bait, very few fish. We got in the tail end of some action along the south end of Sandy Hook. Of note was a multi-species cast, hooked an albie that ran away with all sorts of line, spit the hook, and a bluefish latched on before I got the fly back to the boat. Tally for day, much fuel burned and the world's most expensive bluefish landed. Raritan Bay is chock full of peanut bunkers being harassed by snapper bluefish. If/when real gamefish show up in the bay, look out. We gassed up the boat (yike$), dined at Off The Hook, overnighted at the Fairbanks motel south of Sandy Hook (decent place), and planned to go out the next day as we figured Sunday could only be better than Saturday and the weather forecast was sterling. 

Summary for Sunday, "it sucks to be a minnow". Based on Saturdays' reconnaissance, we got on the water early, headed south a long Sandy Hook, and ran smack into acres of fleeing bait, wheeling birds, and breaking fish, the whole shmegeggie. It was happening from right on the beach to about 1/4 mile out, we saw lots of bent rods among the shore guys. Hook ups came fast if you were fishing a sinking line. Matt only had an intermediate, stayed with it for a while, and came up empty. Then he switched over to Jeff's spare sinker, hooked up on the first cast, and kept hooking the rest of day. Most of the blitzing fish were bluefish, 3-7 lbs, but there were albies and bass mixed in. We had a dandy bass (~20 lbs) follow a hooked blue right up to the boat. Matt dapped his fly in front of the bass, and a little bluefish zoomed in and snatched the fly before the bass could even consider the option! 

After a little experimentation, we settled on sinking lines, 40 lb fluoro shock tippet, and just about any manner of fly; clousers, surf candies, and deceivers, big or small, colorful or drab, flashy or dull, all caught fish. Surprising to me we was the fact that albies weren't put off by 40 lb tippet. The action stayed hot, with a few lulls, for most of the day, and we ended up leaving them biting. Final tally was 2 bass, 6 albies, enough bluefish to make everyone say uncle by 3:00 pm, and no flounders, sea robins, or plastic bags. As we chugged into the harbor, boats were backed up outside the ramp area, and a guy said there was a truck, trailer, and boat in the water at the ramp. Turned out the guy backed down the ramp, loaded his boat, got in the truck, put it in drive, and the whole unit just slid right down the ramp into the water. Talk about a sinking feeling. This particular ramp is coated with algae around the low tide line and is slippery as snot in places; reportedly 8 vehicles have gone in the drink there this season. They called in a tow truck, a scuba diver swam out and hooked the tow cable the truck, and they winched the whole thing out. Turned out that the truck, trailer, and boat were all brand new. Seemed like no damage to boat or trailer, boats float and trailers are made to be submerged. But the truck .... ouch. 

While waiting our turn at the ramp, we watched another guy (in a 2WD truck) barely get his truck and boat up the ramp, smokin' the rear wheels all the way. Suffice to say were feeling a little edgy about extracting the SS Rail Catch. But, we waited our turn, loaded the boat, engaged 4x4, and plucked it out without a hitch. Whew. In fact, the whole weekend went off with a major hitch, save that the pool noodle that pads the bow leaning rail blew out and needs replacing. 

Lessons learned: 

Time to tie more flies.... 

Click here for the picture of the day... who can identify what this is and where it is? 

Scott Ziegenfuss

Wednesday, September 28, 2006: So we're back from a week of chasing albies in Marthas Vineyard, and the Lessons Learned section of this report is bulging. We had a group of six guys; Terry, Craig, Brian, Kirk, Jeff, and myself, and everybody hooked up. Our landing percentage was considerably lower, creative ways to lose fish abounded. 

We also encountered some memorable characters. Man Without a Face (MWAF) was seriously sun-averse; he wore long pants, long sleeve shirt, sun gloves, ball cap, sunglasses, and a full face mask (!), which sort of flipped everybody out. We encountered MWAF standing on Big Bridge jetty one day, and the only part of skin exposed to the sun was his fingertips! He used a sinktip line, big flashy flies, and outfished everybody in sight. "Albie Dude" looked like a middle-aged California surfer guy, reportedly fishes albies harder and more often than anyone on the island, and turned me on to a fly tied with an aquarium tubing body and a tail of pearl flashabou (very innovative!). He also got to albie fish over his lunch hour from work. Dick. 

The week started off with a near miss, as hurricane Ophelia turned east before blasting MV and Nantucket. I drove all night 9/17, caught the 6:15 a.m. freight ferry out of Woods Hole, and was standing on Big Bridge jetty, dazed and dopey, by 8:00 a.m. The albies obliged and began crashing bait right all over the place from the start. The reasons I could give to account for why I didn't hook up is too long to list here, but includes things like, "my running line tangled", and "the fish don't stay up long enough". I basically just sucked, hadn't fished for a while and couldn't put it together. I finally managed to stick one from the beach at the end of the jetty, had my drag too loose and almost got spooled before the hook pulled. 

Kirk (Man with One Fly) arrived the next day and hooked and landed an albie at Big Bridge. Kirk has built-in fish karma but is prone to flyline mishaps :) Our rental house was great, in the woods just west of Edgartown, and the weather cooperated too. In the interest of keeping this e-mail from getting too long, I'll jump right to Lessons Learned, but suffice to say that despite the low number of fish landed, drinks were drank, jokes were told, casts were made, flies were tied, farts were ripped, and a good time was had by all! 

Lessons Learned 

Albies should be hanging around the NJ coast for a while, there's still time to get out there after them.... 

Scott Ziegenfuss

Sunday, August 21, 2005: I managed to tack a 5 day fishing trip to the end of a business trip to Denver. We left Denver last Friday morning around 6AM and headed southwest to the Tomahawk Wildlife Management Area which is located halfway between Fairplay and Hartsel. The Middle Fork of the South Platte is only a small stream here, but the fishing was awesome. This is mostly a Brown trout fishery. I caught about 6 fingerlings, and about 6 fairly decent sized fish. I started fishing with a dry and dropper combo that was highly recommended by my host (a colleague from work). I was using a Dave's hopper with a Copper John for the dropper. Casting the hopper tight to the banks seemed to produce strikes from the larger fish. The dropper was only catching the fingerlings (nice if you're getting skunked, but annoying after the first hour). I removed the dropper since it was making the cast into the undercuts extremely difficult. Other flies that seemed to work well were Tan Caddis, and a Stimulator pattern. The two brown trout pictured were "typical" size for the day (we caught about 12 over the course of 4 hours). The largest was a 16-17" hog that literally jumped out of the net and somehow threw the hook all in one maneuver. 

I picked my wife up at the airport Friday night, and we headed up to Estes Park. I selected a B&B on the upper reaches of the Big Thompson River about a mile or two below the Estes Park Dam. I had not intended to fish the Big Thompson, but since it was literally 40 ft from my back door, I did end up fishing it a couple of times before breakfast, since there did not appear to be any hatches, I fished mostly a tan elk hair. I managed to land a couple of "French Creek" sized brownies, but wasn't able to catch any Rainbow's.

Our first full day in Estes, we hiked into Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park to fish for the Greenback Cutthroat. Hiking into the lake you are rewarded with incredible views and interesting fishing. I managed to land a few Greenback's which felt pretty good since there were quite a few people up there who couldn't figure out what these guys were eating. The fly that seemed to produce the best results was a #24 white fly pattern that I couldn't even find in the fly shops out there. Dream Lake is a very short hike so it get's a ton of fishing pressure and I'm sure these trout were wiser than the typical "back country" fish.

On Sunday I wanted to fish the other side of the rockies for the Colorado West Slope Cutthroat. It had rained and snowed Saturday night, so the Colorado River (really just a stream in the park) was running off color. We opted to drive on down to Grand Lake and fished along the East portal trail. I managed to catch a West Slope above the falls on the trail. Past the falls is the East Meadow which has an incredible brook trout fishery. The fish here aren't huge (10" is considered a whale by the locals), but what they lack in size, they make up for in numbers. I must have landed about 10 fish in the course of an hour.

Monday was the "killer day". I got up at 6AM and fished the Big Thompson for 2 hours. I didn't catch a whole lot of fish, but it was enjoyable just the same. After breakfast, we drove to the Southeast corner of the park known as Wild Basin. Here we hiked 7 miles up into the high country to a lake called Thunder Lake. We arrived at 2:30 and had the lake to ourselves. This is a true back country destination. We did not see but one person the entire time we were at the lake. For the record, the trout here were just the way I prefer them.... BIG and STUPID. I didn't land a fish here under 10", and the average seemed more like 12". The lake is at 10,500 feet, and doesn't normally thaw out completely until June, so... these fish make hay while the sun shines. Basically, these fish hit everything I threw at them. The only thing that seemed to spook them was the occaisional bad cast. The technique here is mostly: cast a big bug onto the surface, wait about 30 seconds for the strike, set the hook, reel. 

Since Tuesday was our last day, we decided to take it easy. I fished Cow Creek in the morning and we drove out through the Big Thompson Canyon (down to Loveland) on the way back to Denver. I pulled off the road and fished the Big Thompson just above Drake. There were Rainbow's rising here, but I couldn't seem to catch a single one. I have no idea what these guys were hitting (neither did the three other fishermen who tried their luck while I was there). I tied on a Woolly Bugger and somehow managed to foul hook a 10" Brownie, but he wasn't anything to write home about when there are 15" Rainbow's rising in all directions. Kirk's fly shop in Estes Park touts the "Colorado Grand Slam" as catching: Brown, Brook, Cutthroat, and Rainbow. I was sorta hoping that I would hook one of those Rainbow's so I could claim a grand slam, but it just wasn't happening. My wife recommended that since the Rainbow's are transplants, I could substitute the West Slope Cut and create my own "Grand Slam"... sounded good to me. (Technically, everything but the cuts are non-native species).
Troy Dunn

Thursday, July 14 thru Saturday, July 16, 2005: I fished with my brother Randy and two good flyfishing buddies from Batavia New York, Doug and Jack. On Thursday night we fished the Juniata above Duncannon where I had good luck on 2 outings earlier this year. We only got 5 smallmouths between us. On Friday we fished the Susquehanna near the Liverpool access early and late in the day and only managed to catch 3 bass, one being a 17 incher caught where a small feeder stream was flowing in 72 degree water. The water temperature in the main river was 84 degrees and water clarity was good till until we left on Saturday morning. Saturday, Jack and Doug went on to fish for trout at Spring Creek. Randy and I fished Saturday morning for a couple of hours on the Susquehanna without catching a fish. I did see a number of diseased fingerlings near the shoreline with portions of their flesh missing. This confirms Bob Molzahn's email late last week of low catch rates and diseased young bass. I think I will be waiting for cooler water temperatures.
Lance Morien 

Wednesday, June 29, 2005: The Westslope Cutthroat is really tiny, but it was my first Cutthroat and on a high alpine lake they don't get real huge. The brookie I caught in "Two Medicine" was really nice, again not huge, but remarkably beautiful. Mostly fished Nymphs, the green beadhead Woolly Bugger you see hooked into the brookie seemed to be very good for the lakes, you need to let your line sink and then slowly strip the line in. I caught the cutthroat on a March Brown of all things, I was having no luck with the nymphs on that lake, so I figured I work near the shoreline around deadfall trees where a few bugs were buzzing around. Seemed to work ok. The shot on Lake MacDonald was taken at about 10:30PM. I wish I had more pictures, Montana was awesome. I caught a really small (about 7") bull trout on the North Fork of the Flathead river, not real impressive size-wise, but another species of trout I'd never caught before.
Troy Dunn

Monday, May 9, 2005: For some reason I decided this evening that although it was already getting late (about 7:30PM) it seemed like an hour of fishing might be the ticket for chasing away the days problems. I wasn't in the mood to drive to the Delayed Harvest Stretch so I pulled on my waders and boots, walked down the hill to my favorite spot above the covered bridge and hopped out on to the remnants of the old mill dam to see if any fish were rising in the pool up stream. Must have waited there at least 10 minutes, not a single rise. Well wouldn't that be the finishing touch to a bad day! I decided to tie on an Adams and fish up through the pool to see if anything might take interest…. Nothin'. With the sun beginning to set, I tied on a nymph and made my way back down to the riffles below the dam breach. I was casually casting downstream (thinking about other things really) just a single hit would have been enough for me at that point, but then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There was a swarm of bugs slowly drifting my way from upstream on the gentle evening breeze that accompanies the end of the day as the air begins to take on a chill. By the time it drifted to my location the swarm had clearly grown, in a matter of just a few minutes I was in a blizzard of mayflies. I reached out to grab a few, but they would almost magically move away from my arm as it sliced through tens of flies. I finally latched onto one… light cream colored bodies all of them with their tail sections curled up and holding a small perfect yellow/orange sphere about the size of the split shot I had attached to my line. I was amazed, almost transfixed by the armada of flies around me. I dug through my fly boxes looking for the Light Cahill poly wing spinners with the little ball of yellow or orange at the end. I couldn't find them…I dug around one more time, looked up the hill toward the house, and then back down across the water where the evening oranges and reds were already fading to grays and blues. It didn't matter I told myself, the mayflies appeared to be dancing above the surface of the water, none had landed that I could see, and there were no trout rising, no subtle dimples in the water, no suspicious slurping noises. I found a spot to sit and watch as the armada continued to drift by. The spinner fall will eventually come... probably later tonight, maybe tomorrow morning, then the trout will surely rise…. and I'll be there, with a fresh batch of #14 Light Cahill Polywing spinners with those little orange/yellow balls tied in at the tail end.
Troy Dunn

Monday, March 28, 2005: Easter services were held at (where else) Spring Creek, 550 bridge and up, to be exact. Services commenced promptly at 11:00 and were sparsely attended, just Brother Freeman and myself. The weather was good, 40s, solid overcast, no rain (all day), stream was on the high side and just slightly green. It seems that fishing on holidays can be good or bad, depending on what holiday it is and what day it falls on. Turns out that Easter is a great holiday to fish on. While the majority of anglers spent yesterday getting preached to about their sins, hunting Easter eggs, and biting the heads off of chocolate bunnies, the bugs still hatched and the fish still rose. In squadrons, as it turned out. 

I put in at 550 bridge, made a few casts on the downstream side just to thumb my nose at the butthead property owner who kicks everybody off that stretch. Immediately spotted a palomino tracer trout, felt obliged to catch it, and of course couldn't. I did pick up a couple unseen browns from the same run, chased the skunk right off the bat. So I nymphed through 550 run, further educating a few of Pete's pet fish; they ate an even mix of #14 Cress Bug and #18 tailed Serendipity. For the first time ever, I wore both sunglasses and 1.5x reading glasses around my neck, having struggled to see small flies and thin tippets the week before. It worked out great aside from getting the croakies all tangled up, I felt like Flip Pallot, or Craig. 

About noon I moved up into the big long glide pool above 550 run, know where I mean? Just downhill from the house where sheep stand on the front porch and try to go inside when the owners let down their guard. Yeah, that's the place. So I'm strolling upstream along bank, dodging the refuse that flows downhill from the previously mentioned house, and don't you know the pool is just stiff with rising trout. At closer inspection, the place was stiff with olive mayflies too. I have to admit to thinking, "can't you guys just stop rising, move up in to that run, and start dredging sucker spawn off the bottom instead?" But no such luck there, and I was obliged to hang up my perky yarn strike indicator and beloved Dinsmoor split shot, and retie with a long 6x tippet and a... can I say the word... OK, here goes.... dry fly. 

It's not that I don't like fishing dry flies, I do. It's just that the activity lies outside my comfort zone. When fishing nymphs, I feel like an efficient predator, picking my way through rocky chutes and across bouncing riffles, casting, reaching, mending, slipping casts into a pocket here, a slick there, snatching out fish like a heron. And then somehow, when I tie on a dry fly and wade into a long pool full of rising trout, I mysteriously transform from a stealthy hunter to a bumbling hippopotamus. Ever see that Looney Tunes cartoon that features the tutu-clad, ballet-dancing hippo? She tries real hard but the stage always ends up collapsing underneath her? 

So I try to ease into the water, slip on the muddy bank, slide into the creek with a splash, send shock waves across the pool like miniature tsunamis, and hang my first cast in the trees behind me. The fish keep rising, impervious to the streamside dunce. But I persist, my feet settling firmly into the silty bottom, my backcasts avoiding the foliage, and after a while, my fly bouncing happily down the current. Having established myself in the game, the deal now became trying to track my fly on the water and to determine if and when a fish might have eaten it. I'm standing in a olive colored stream, on a dull gray day, trying track the progress of an olive and gray spec among thousands of other similar specs. After a few drifts, I raised my rod to cast and came tight to a fish. That's good and all, but not as gratifying as realizing that I actually had a bite to begin with. So I really bore down, scrutinized where my fly landed and tracked it like a hawk. As often as not, the fly I was watching would flutter its wings and fly away. Then a fish took a natural several inches from the spec I was tracking, and a few seconds later the end of my line started swimming away. Guess I was tracking the wrong spec again. I landed him, not sure who was more surprised. 

Another thing about dry fly fishing in March is that you freeze your ass off. Standing immobile in thigh deep water is not the same as lightfooting along through ankle deep riffles, my toes turned to ice and I had to pee like crazy, but I just couldn't stop casting. I thought back to frigid winter days spent on the Salmon River, chucking and ducking like a robot, hoping against hope for the tug of a steelhead. What ever happened to the those waders with a zippered fly? 

In any event, there must have 15 to 20 trout rising with easy casting distance at any one time. And gradually, the previously bumbling hippo began to transform; casts laid out smartly and dropped the fly onto the water with just so much slack, it became apparent that my fly did in fact look slightly different from the naturals, a trout rose to intercept the spec I was watching, and I came tight to him. I landed the fish, dried the fly, worked out line, picked a riser, and caught him after a few drifts. And so it went for the better part of three hours. Amazingly (to me), I used the same fly the whole time, the thing was both indestructible and unsinkable. It was a #18 comparadun; wispy dun tails, dubbed light olive body (so as to match the underside of the naturals), and a dyed dark-dun, coastal deer hair wing. After catching a fish, I would need to wash and dry the fly and the best way to do so was to press it between folds of my undershirt. A drawback was that the only place my undershirt was exposed and accessible was right underneath my chin, tough to see. I must have hooked the fly in my shirt a dozen times. But in the end, I clipped off the fly, popped it into it's own compartment in the box, ready for retirement and to serve as a reminder of Easter 2005. 

Lessons Learned: 

Scott Ziegenfuss

Wednesday, March 16,2005: It seems that the central theme of most fishing reports is some sort of boondoggle; somebody flew 1500 miles and forgot their reel, fell off a jetty, repeatedly flailed acres of fishless water, got their flyline wrapped around the prop, or whatever.  So what can you say about a trip where everything pretty much fell into place and came off way better than planned or even hoped for?   Here's the tale...

Jethro, Brian, Craig and I met at Philly airport early on March 5 and jetted off to Nassau, with a connection to Governors Harbor, Eleuthera.  Everyone and everything got there in fine shape and on time (no small accomplishment there).  Picking up rental cars consisted of walking across the airport parking lot and finding two unlocked Nissan sedans with full tanks and keys in the ignition.  No forms to fill out, no drivers license, no proof of insurance, no nothing, no problem mon.  We jetted off to Rainbow Inn, stopped for a couple cases of Kaliks, and got there around sunset.  The Rainbow Inn is a nicely maintained complex of bungalows and a restaurant, sitting on a bluff along the Caribbean side of the island.  It's run by an American guy named Ken who's been there 20+ years and is ready to sell (hmm...).  As promised, Ken set us up with tide charts, detailed maps of the island, and the "Bonefish Graham" guide to bonefishing Eleuthera.  This was a "do it yourself" trip, no guides or boats, just maps, rental cars, and our ability to figure out when and where based on wind direction and tide stage.  Eleuthera is about 100 miles long, 2 miles wide, and is pocketed with protected coves and bays that have flats.  It seems that at least a few flats are protected from the wind no matter which way it blows.  

Day 1 dawned fair to partly crappy, and pretty chilly, as did most days we were there.  Having been to Eleuthera before, Brian took on the job of chief navigator and guide, and suggested a number of places to wet a line.  We drove to a beautiful protected cove on the Atlantic side on the falling tide, saw singles, schools, and tailers, and hooked nothing.  This was good news and bad news.  Given the chilly conditions, the prevailing fear was that the water temperature was too low and the bonefish would be hunkered down in deep water, waiting for June before coming up on the flats.  On the downside, we had no hookups, the fish were spooky and picky, intolerant of our bumbling.  

So we jetted across the island about 5 miles and set up in another spot, the tide being 2 hours later on the Caribbean side.  This spot was a small semi-protected bay, with a white sandy bottom but no real "flats".  Rather, there were a series of channels and bars running parallel to the beach; we'd fish a channel from a bar, and then move out to the next bar as the tide dropped.  And lo and behold, the fish were there and bitey too.  Everybody hooked up and landed at least several, and the skunk was chased.  I saw (after I scared it away) the biggest bone I'd ever seen (up to that time).  

Subsequent days came and went in a flash.  We'd be up at dawn, on the road to Promising Flat of the Day, fish, stay or move depending on results, come back at dusk, drink, eat, collapse, repeat the next day.  Everybody caught their biggest bone ever, Jeff breaking his own record several times.  Craig, on his first bonefish excursion ever, picked it up quick and did especially well on Thursday, picking a good ambush spot, staying with it, and getting repeatedly bent as a result.  Brian proved to have uncanny navigational skills, remembering obscure turnoffs from already obscure locations, that led to beautiful and productive flats.  Daily catches per person ranged from 1 to 20+, pretty darn good so far as I was concerned.  All in all, 5 stars for the trip, the company, lodging, meals, cars, fishing, weather, beer, price, everything was top rate.  I want to go back ASAP. 

Lessons learned and unlearned: