Bass Bugs, Beer, & Blogs

Bass Bugs

As I told you before, I started tying flies. Well, as it turns out, I have all the dry flies and nymphs I need for now. Okay, that's not true, you can never have enough flies, but there are some flies that I need more than others. This summer I was buying a fly from my local fly shop that was just killing the smallmouths. There's only one problem... they're not getting that fly in anymore.

Being an excellent fly shop owner he got me some of the materials that it takes to tie it. Problem is, I just started tying and I wasn't sure if I could tie it. I gave it a try anyway. The only problem was I had to do it from memory, and substitute the stuff I did have for the things I didn't. It took me three tries, but I got something close, and something that I think the smallmouth should smash.

First fishable bass bug

Beer

My friends and I finished the IPA that I brewed this weekend. It was good, the whole way down to the last glass. And I say last glass, because when we got to the last glass in the keg, it was obvious that some of the ingredients had fallen out of the beer to the bottom, as you can tell from the pic. This is even after I had it through a secondary fermentor. I tried it, and it tasted the same just a little grittier, my friends however wouldn't touch it. Having finished the last of the IPA, we tapped the Pilsner that it seemed like we've been working on for ever. More on that later.....

The one on the left is the last of the keg, everything else looked like the right

Blogs

I've been following the blogs listed on this page for a little while now, and I just want to say that those guys are doing an excellent job. I thoroughly enjoy checking these sites out everyday. If any of you guys are paying attention.... Thanks, it's good stuff, and entertaining. And if you're not following thes guys, you should, it's worth it.

Snow Melt

Some friends contacted me about fishing. I have a really hard time passing up any chance to fish. I also thought it would be a good chance for my brother to meet some new guys to fish with. He just started fishing and I'm not really the best teacher. We had a great time, but the fishing really slowed down once it started to warmed up, and the snow started to melt.

We finished the day off with an excellent meal and a few beers at Spruce Creek Tavern. If you're in the area, I would reccomend this palce. I've been there a few times and the food is always good, and they always have Otto's Spruce Creek Lager on tap. You can't beat that.

When this is where you're fishing, you know you're in the right spot.

The fish in this stream are absolutely beautiful

It's still too cold to put hand in the water to take photo's

I marvel at these bridges every time

Fishing with these guys is always a good time

Beer update: We kegged the Prima Pils clone last night and finished off the IPA. I can't wait to tap this, and when I do I'll let you know how it turns out.

Brookies

 

I got a quick fix of fishing today in the rain. I'm fishing The Little J tomorrow, but things worked out that I could get out for a couple of hours today. I'm glad I did. The stream I fished has always produced above average sized brookies for a freestone stream.Well, it didn't dissapoint today either. I only caught a few fish, but the ones I did catch were nice.

It also rained the whole time, and with my new camera I had no worries at all. I do have to say that I was not willing to sumbmerge my hand in the water to take a pic. That part of the camera review is going to have to wait.




First Fish Of 2013

 

Sharp Fins

Beautiful Spots

 

  

Wow

 

 

 

I'll add more photos later, gotta go for Mexican. Win for me!

Why Am I Still Awake??

Why am I still awake?

Is it insomnia?

No, it's the Internet, and cool stuff like this site http://www.reelgrea.se/ that has some great music.

And this, these guys make great fly fishing videos. Make sure you maximize the window.

Check them out at http://www.frontsidefly.com/ it's good stuff.

Camera Review Part I

I promised a camera review, so you're going to get one. Not a complete review, but a review nonetheless. 

Saturday my wife, daughter, and I all hopped in my truck with our cameras to take some scenic pictures from around the area. My wife has a Cannon DSLR, my daughter has a Nikon Coolpix and I now have an Olympus TG-1, as stated in an earlier thread. What a fun family activity to do. We even turned it into a little family competition, to see who could get the best picture. The plan was to have my mother and father in law judge the pictures without knowing who took them. Well that didn't work out well because they just said that they were all nice pictures and that they couldn't choose. That's o.k, we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

 I got to mess with the settings a little bit, and take some really cool pictures. I unfortunately didn't get to take any underwater pictures this weekend like I wanted. The plan was to go fishing this weekend but something more important came up and it just didn't pan out. It'll happen though, probably this weekend. That's why I called this Part I, because I don't think I could give this camera a fair assessment without really doing what I bought it for and that's submerging under water to take some fish pics. 

Anyways, on to the review. 

 Interface

Let start with the interface, or how to select the settings. I found this extremely easy to deal with. The buttons are large enough that you can navigate through the setting even with gloves on. Instead of going into menu's within menu's everything is right there on the display depending on which mode you select with the selection wheel. This made it very easy to manipulate the settings.  

Display

The display is clear, bright, and large enough to see the small details that you would sometimes require while shooting. It's scratch resistant and I guess that it will take some time to determine how much of a beating the display will really be able to take.

Images

Well this is really the meat and potatoes of the review. First, I'd like to say that I'm new at this whole photography thing, so what I say here might not really be worth anything at all, but here it is. This camera takes excellent images within it zoom range as you can see by the pictures below. And really that is the only thing that I can think of that you would want from this camera, that it doesn't have, to be able to zoom in further. Well unlike other cameras in it class, it achievable. You can actually add a lens to this camera, I haven't but you can, and I may someday.  

This gives this camera a true advantage above the rest. That, and the fact that this camera has the f/2.0 wide-angle lens that allow it to take excellent shots in low light levels. I guess that's really important for taking underwater photo's ( I will get to that in Part II of my review).  I haven't taken any real close up images yet but, I can't see where this is going to be a real issue, and I'll try to do that for the second part of the review also.

Settings

There are some really cool settings on this camera, and unlike other cameras I've used in the past they are not hard to find. There are all kinds of setting in this camera, and it would take me all day to go through them, but one of my favorite is the "Magic" setting. Within this setting you can apply all sorts of effects to the images you take, but you have to put it on those settings before you take the photo. All the images below are unedited, and all I did was change some settings in the camera. This might not be as appealing to you photography purest, but for me it's really cool, and I can't wait to get out there and use some of these on the stream. 

Extras

The extras this camera has are really cool, and I haven't even scratched the surface of this yet but I'll list a few. The camera has GPS, so you know where your photo's are taken. My I-phone has this and at first I thought it was a stupid idea, but you would be amazed at how quickly you forget where you took pictures at. It also has a feature that allows you to take a picture by just tapping the camera itself. I'm sure that will come in handy when taking group photos.

Overall

Overall, I love this camera. It's exactly what I would want from a camera and I'm sure that it's going to give me years of enjoyment. The problem with my other cameras is that I was always afraid to take them with me, be it camping, canoeing, fishing, ect. I'm always in the elements and we all know that that's not good for electronics. This camera gives me the freedom not to worry as much about dropping it, or getting it wet, and that's good because one of my projects for this year is to fill my basement and camp with pictures of my friends and I enjoying life. And man can I enjoy life with the best of them.

 

  

Beer Update:
I've been lagering a Prima Pils clone for well over a month now and I'm thinking that it should be ready sometime within the next week or so. So be prepared for a post on one of my favorite beers!!!!

Fly tying

, a photo by coty_soult on Flickr.

Since I've started fishing, I've always said that I didn't think I'd ever tie flies. Well, I've been kicking it around for some time now. Not because I think it's cheaper, but because I don't think the flies I buy are heavy enough, or they don't have the ones I want.

So someone got me a kit for Christmas, and I have to say, it's much more fun than I thought it would be. I decided to do a wolly bugger for my first fly..... It's not perfect but here it is.

Water

Water

It rushes and it moves, always knowing where to go. It can take all sorts forms from fluid to solid and everything in between. Something draws me to it, its beauty, its movement, its power. Life surrounds it, is immersed in it, and fed by it. 

As someone who interacts with it, you begin to know it and understand it, to fear and respect it.

Everyone knows that you need it to survive, but it’s more than that.

 All the activities in my life have revolved around it. From canoeing the Susquehanna river when I would come back to Pennsylvania  in the summers of my youth, to surfing the waves of Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina, as an escape during my early teens. The whitewater canoeing I did in the spring and summer, to snowboarding on its frozen form both during my twenties. And now to fly fishing, where I expect I will spend my free time for years to come.

It will always be there, and I will always go back to it.