If you ain’t rippin’ lips, whatchew doin?
This lake is close to where I live and is also on the “Report Board” at Sportsman’s Whorehouse. For that reason I held off on going there because it would fairly reek of desperation. After being taunted, en mass, by the collective here, I swallowed my pride and went. Pulling into the parking lot, after driving through the rolling grasslands of southeastern Arizona, and spotting the bank apes out in full force, I was a little skeptical of what this place would have to offer.
However the normal rule of “the crowds thins about 1 mile from the parking lot” applied and after walking about 1/2 mile, I was pretty much alone, which is great considering the masses crowded lawn chair to lawn chair within that radius. The lake was probably created by a CCC or WPA project back in the 30′s and is stcoked with troutski’s, and has resident bass and ‘gills. I scouted its four mile circumference and came to a startling conclusion: I need new gear.
The fishing from shore wasn’t hot, but looking out across the size of the lake, it hit me- I need a float tube
A float tube, YES! and damsel flies and rainbow trout style double bunnies for those whore bass. Sink tips and hope springs eternal!
Warning- gratuitous snake porn
Hello springtime! Hey! You up in here?
Any damn time you’re ready!
No, seriously, no rush or anything.
OK, I’ll show you. How bout I tie on the most godawful shabby tacky running-out-the-door can’t-find-the-coneheads bling-sucking white marabou streamer thing and dredge it through here like it’s February? Eat this!
Shameless! Alright then. I guess this just goes to show that, like Smithhammer’s slutty cutts, even snooty broon troots can go a-whoring. Now I think I’ll find some Hendrickson nymphs and taunt them into hatching.
(Yeah, cameras on your phone suck but that’s all i had and it was badass if you were there when the sun hit the alder tops. you gotta trust me.)
So.
Smiff’s early season trouts. Wally’s slab ‘gills. Creek’s new breakdancing/yoga obsession. Salty’s recent desert canyon explorations, Wook’s reoccurring fleas and the obvious fact that the Banknote’s so on fire lately he’s honorably ghey could only mean one thing, stains:
Water temps, they’re rising and warm is good. Different, but good.
Been out stupidly looking for the first of the spring salmon here in P’oregon and i really suck at spring salmon fishing, so instead, me and dog took a look on some greasy steelhead water the Bank’s been molesting.
We did this because that’s what friends do.
Sometimes, friends might sometimes go where you told them you got your last three fish. you innocently mentioned this when you were half-canned and we were genuinely super stoked for you ’cause when a steelheader’s hand’s on fire, it’s pretty badass. But see, we also might have chucked a mental bookmark into our front lobe with it all. We let that stuff marinate some. That’s how friends and sneaky little, 10-swing pieces of jedi water go. you tell a fella about your sweet girl of a spot, he’s eventually gonna go try and get her to dance.
with a friend’s steelhead spots, that’s cool. the info’s shared freely inside the circle. with their morel spots, that’s different. Man’s gotta ask before you pull that kind of thing.
So we rocked Bank’s spot and found the flow up a bit, but dropping like a rock. badass times. fished Bank’s piece and it was pushier than normal but still felt real stinky, then did some exploring upriver to a piece we’ve both been eyeing. three minutes into a hailstorm that turned sunny six minutes after, my winter steelhead season officially ended and a note to the ‘Note: this one i didn’t farm like the one on saturday.
6:14 PST. first summer run of 2008. Upper Matrimony, on some weird ostrichy fly i tend to think looks sleazy. ate it well way out in the grease and shown me my backing four times before the inside slugfest. good fight and it ripped me up some, but we’re still gonna miss winter season huge. man, you’ve got no idea.
#1 in the #2 business
I have a friend who sits for his morning constitutional as soon as he wakes up. The rest of us have to invoke the stimulating powers of caffeine and/or nicotine to get things moving. If I waited around the house to start my day, I would never start my day, hopefully there will be a privy of some sort when I get there.
seep lakes
Sometime a while back the Corp of Engineers built a dam across a little spring creek in the desert. Before long a reservoir of considerable size backed up behind this dam adversely affecting the local aquifer. The water table rose and many of the low laying coulees in the area began to fill with water, forming permanent lakes.
trophy bluegill?
Enter the bluegill. Sometimes I have an itch that only dozens of hand sized, popper eating blugills can scratch. Suffice it to say that, with the proper management, I am pro ‘gill.
basss!
“Bass” is just another way to say “proper bluegill management.” Lakes that have liberal limits on ‘gills and conservative limits on bass tend to have good fishing for both species. Every seep lake should have such enlightened regs.
sandhill cranes
Large flocks of sandhill cranes wheeled overhead all day long. Here is a small formation flying towards a field where they’ll roost overnight. Take care of the rivers and wetlands and the rest will follow.
sunset
That familiar “Evening Redness in the West” signals the end of the day. Later in the season sunset will mark the time when the basss move to the shallows to feed. They’ll be moving through heavy cover and looking up so tie on a big ‘ol deer hair bug, make sure it has a weedguard.
A conversation at [Redacted] on Sunday
“Any luck with that fly rod?”
“Not yet, just out here doing some scouting though”
“I started out with a fly rod this morning, caught two rainbows, then the bite died and I switched over to the corn yellow Powerbait. Limited out on that. Looks like a fish fry tonight”
On April 14 in every county in Wisconsin the unique Conservation Congress spring hearings will be held. A disgruntled, “retired” fisheries manager has been waging a personal war against the enlightened Wisconsin inland trout coldwater fisheries regulations. He has found a like-minded group of the “kill more small trout” contingent and managed to put to vote the regulations protecting five miles of the prime rearing habitat for native trout in the Prairie River in central Wisconsin. All Wisconsin citizens are eligible to vote by showing up at the hearings in every county. The citizens of the surrounding states of Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois, which are generally referred to as Greater Wisconsin, are also eligible to vote on this advisory question. Vote yes on question 36.
Ramp Schmamp. Put-in still buried? No prollem. Gaper and his new Cracka, on the inaugural voyage, breakin’ her in good ‘n proper:
Ike’s Super Karate Monkey Ultimate Expert Fishing Tip #42
Never ever park your boat under a tree full of flying fox bats. Flying foxes are fruit eaters, and their guano is extremely acidic. It’ll really wreck your day and you will not be quiet.
Ike is Wise
The late George Hastings told me that trout bit not for hunger, but for wantonness. But George was always a little weird.
brown breasted mattress thrashers
buster wants to fish in my ass
porn rorschach
do yuo know?
punk in the 70s
naked girl holding fish
goddamn fly fishing
From the amazing invisible vise of Ginseng Sullivan we give you these deadly little caddis imitations:
TRANS DELTA WING PUPA:
HOOK- DAIICHI 1150 14-16
BEAD- TRANSLUCENT GUNMETAL GLASS BEAD
THREAD- OLIVE 6/0
ABDOMEN- CLEAR V-RIB
WING- TAN SPARKLE YARN
THORAX- MIXED ANGORA GOAT
OLIVE DUN CADDIS:
HOOK- DAIICHI 1180 14-18
THREAD- UNI 8/0 OLIVE DUN
BODY- OLIVE TURKEY BIOT
WING- NATURAL DEER
HACKLE- GRIZZLY DYED OLIVE
The new pup is in there, somewhere amidst that pile o’ puppy flab. She comes home on Apr. 15. But here’s the problem, I was all ready to name her “Gibby” after the Gibbon River. Our other dog is named Madison (after the Madison River, as named by Capts. Lewis and Clark and, as a bonus, one of my favorite presidents). Anyway, Gibby was thee perfect name. A cool river, the nickname of on of the greatest MSU Spartans ever (Kirk Gibson) and the name of the lead singer of the Butthole Surfers. However, the guy what the Gibbon was named after was Gen. John Gibbon, an Indian killer. We can’t have that… So, tho I will be certain to regret this, I wouldn’t mind hearing some suggestions.
Earl Scruggs & Steve Martin – Foggy Mountain Breakdown
Not even the H-bomb can kill it! Thousands die in streets!
The Minutemen – We Jam Econo
The kind of day where you know it ain’t gonna be purty, so you fuel up right:
And after a couple hours in this shizzle, you’re glad you did:
Luckily, they were as hungry as you were:
And then, as you hike back to the car, the clouds break, the temps. pop up 10 deg, and you look back down at the run to see it turning on. Ha ha veddy funny.
“They rode out on the north road as would parties bound for El Paso but before they were even quite out of sight of the city they had turned their tragic mounts to the west and they rode infatuate and half fond toward the red demise of that day, toward the evening lands and the distant pandemonium of the sun.”
Cormac McCarthy, “Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West”, Vintage, 1985
(Photo by Doszapatos, on Salty’s Camera)
Taken somewhere up on the Mogollon Rim last fall.
The year’s first summer fish and, much to my wife’s delight, she’s a nickle-bright hatchery hen. A quick trip to the morel patch and some greens from the garden should round things out nicely. We’ve grown tired of eating plastic wrapped lifeless crap that’s been shipped in from some place way down yonder south. Time again to top off the tanks of propane….
She was a fiesty one. If there’d been another run in her, bets are she’d have avoided the rock shampoo.
See ya in the next bucket.
We’ve just about to hit 100,000 unique visits here at BWTF. Whoopde-fuckin-doo for us. To celebrate, we’re hosting this here “open thread”. To make it interesting, we’re giving away a badass BWTF t-shirt (hand screened by thee and WT on a recent sunny Tuesday morning) and a free goddam post of whatever you can think up on Buster. We’ll select one random post from the open thread as the “lucky” winner.
Oh, and yes, that is Stryper.
We’ve been giving the industry a fair bit of grief on this site (169% of it almost completely deserved, and also, well, ‘cuz it’s fun…), but we’d be remiss if we didn’t also pursue the flipside, and give props where props is due. I ordered a fly box from Cliff Outdoors the other day, and it came with this note inside;
“Like all of our boxes, this great box isn’t made in B.F. Egypt by people who don’t fish. No! It’s made in Wyoming by anglers, for anglers.”
Damn, now that’s what we’re talking about – is it really that hard? While we’re at it, it’s worth noting Cliff’s philosophy (taken directly from their website):
“At Cliff Outdoors, our aim is to design and manufacture the highest quality, most practical fly fishing accessories without bending you over.”
Now that’s a truly Buster-worthy mission statement if ever there was one. Full disclosure – we have no connection with Cliff, other than a kindred spirit. So when we say we’re down with them, well that’s what it is, nothing more or less.
To Cliff, for being part of that increasingly rare breed that’s keepin’ it real. This one’s for you…
You know something is still right in this crazy, mixed-up world when you can go to a place like this:
With a handful of these:
And find handfulls of these:
Amen to the ’08 season, brothers and sisters. ‘Nuff said.
