fishing for words

(and tossing out random thoughts)

Category Archives: Family


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end of a season

It’s been a good year, trout-fishing-wise, that is. And tomorrow it’ll end in the Sierras with one last hurrah.

Sean and I will make a late-night run to the cabin with plans to spend Friday in the water. Maybe we’ll even hook some fish. If we don’t, it’s dinner at Diamondback Grill. And maybe a bit of manly video game action in the evening.

Saturday’s up in the air, but perhaps we’ll stop on the way home and hike to the Lower Stanislaus River, where there have been sightings of King salmon up to 30 inches. Can’t fish for ‘em but would be fun to watch.

BTW, nice sunny day here in northern California…so did the right thing. Rode the bike to work. Love that it now takes less than $7 to fill the tank!


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nothing beats a “free” weekend

In the words of my father, I “made out like a bandit” this weekend. And had a spot of luck too.

It began Friday when the new hard drive for our Series 3 Tivo arrived. The old hard drive decided to take a permanent vacation, presenting the dilemma of either purchasing a new Tivo, meaning we’d loose the lifetime subscription that has paid for itself a few times over, or trying to drop in a new hard drive. Either way, it would cost about the same. The hard drive install was quick and easy, and after running through the guided set up our resurrected Tivo was running smoothly with our lifetime subscription still intact.

Saturday afternoon the wife and I visited a fellow fly fisherman and his wife with the express purpose of combing though some fly tying materials. Comb through we did. About an hour and a half later I was putting a grocery bag in my car full of materials, including seven dozen spools of thread of all sorts of colors and hues. All that and a dinner date with my wife.

Sunday’s event was courtesy Honda. As a participant of an online Honda Owners Panel (which conducts surveys about once a month) I was awarded two pass to the IndyCar race at Infineon Raceway. Christopher and I arrived about ten that morning to enjoy a continental breakfast in the Honda tent, which was set up at turn two. (An uphill right-hand sweeper.) After walking around the various exhibits and watching the Historic Gran Prix cars head out to the track for warm up, we headed back to the tent for a great rib lunch. Lunch gave way to a visit by the Ryan Hunter-Reay (driving the ethanol-sponsored Rahal/Letterman Racing #17), then a tour of the garage area. Though I wouldn’t pay for the privilege, it was fun seeing the race in person. Helio Castroneves (Team Penske #3) won, with Ryan Hunter-Reay finishing 18th. Gotta love free stuff.

I’ll be the guy looking for more freebies…


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a hopefully excellent adventure

universal-technical-institute-logoChristopher will soon begin an adventure as he reports to the Universal Technical Institute at six-thirty Monday morning. He’s undertaking the Toyota Professional Automotive Technician program, and, hopefully, after sixty weeks, he’ll be on his way to into business of automotive maintenance and repair.


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the rod that gives and gives…

I was happy to hear the Sean got out on the Truckee River last week during his visit to a cabin on Tahoe’s north shore.

I had set him up last Wednesday with my three-year-old $125 Cabela’s 5 wt. fly rod, the one I learned with. Set him up with leader, tippet and five different types of flies. I did take Sean fly fishing, for the first time, about two months ago, but gave him a quick refresher course. Too bad Sean can’t take the fly fishing course in September…

I’ll be the one (hopefully) teaching Sean more about fly fishing…


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a second fly fishing son

[Trying to catch up on stuff around here, so this is a bit late.]

While circumstances conspired to prevent my celebration of Opening Day of trout season (April 26) by actually fishing, I did head to the cabin with Sean and Christopher Saturday night, with plans to hit Moccasin Creek. Sure, Moccasin is stocked, but trout is trout. We stopped at Diamondback Grill to enjoy some burgers, then headed for the cabin and hit the hay.

Sunday morning, Hit Moccasin Creek we did. Christopher, Sean (with my old fly rod), and I (with my new 5 wt. fly rod) were on the water by 7:00 a.m. Sunday. The surprising lack of fisher folks allowed us to pick the best spots. Again, the creek was full of larger brook trout and soon all of us had a fish on the line.

Sean did well for his first time fly fishing, even if it was nymphing, which isn’t what one imagines when fly fishing is mentioned. (Nymphing employs weighted wet flies, which are presented to the fish in their feeding lane underwater.) While Christopher left close to mid morning after pulling in a few fish, but Sean and I spent much of the day on the creek, and in about ten hours Sean had landed a dozen trout. I stopped counting at a dozen. Later in the evening, I fished by myself and right about sunset literally hooked ten trout in thirty minutes, all out of a small pool.

Knowing it was to be a short trip, Monday morning Sean and I headed back down to Moccasin Creek to spend a “little time” on the water before we had to head home. Well, a little time stretched into hours. But I blame it on Sean’s illness…he caught the bug. When I asked if he was ready to leave, his response was “One more cast.” We had fun trying to entice some fish in a deep pool by the dam, fish we could clearly see. I think we both pulled a couple of fish out of there, thanks to my expert fly selection!

A busy but tremendously fun two days.


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ready to roll(cast)

A little bit lighter in the wallet, Christopher and I were another step closer to expanding out fishing horizons.

Finally understanding why fly fisherfolks collect numerous rods, my son and I attended, bid and doled out cash at the Diablo Valley Fly Fishermen’s annual auction. Parting with the green stuff was facilitated by our knowing that it would eventually end up helping any of the various conservation groups supported by the club.

Initially prompted by Christopher’s living and working on California’s north coast, Humboldt County to be exact; we hatched a plan earlier this year to find ourselves fly rods suitable for steelhead. We needed something on the order of 7 wt. rods with matching reels. And that’s exactly what turned up on the auction list.

The bidding was a bit infectious for Christopher but in the end he and I walked out with new Redington 9½-foot, 4-piece 7 wt. rods and CD 7/8 wt. reels. At a heck of a price. I also picked up a Redington 9-foot, 4-piece 5 wt. rod to replace the stick I learned on, an entry-level L.L. Bean 5 wt. rod I hope to hand down to some soul who might want to try a bit of fly fishing. Sean’s first on the list.

Once we get line on the 7 wt. rods it’ll be time to consider steelheading; despite all warnings…adverse weather, high flowing and cold water, and sometimes fickle fish that are constantly on the move.

Yeah, it’s a little bit crazy.


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450-mile weekend

Took a quick weekend trip to visit Christopher. It was cold and drizzly on the way up, but not too bad. Picked Christopher up about 10:45 a.m. Heading north to the lagoons, where we had hoped to fish, it became apparent that he was suffering from the onset of the flu or a severe cold. So, trying to be wise, we shelved the idea of fishing in the cold rain and instead poked along, stopped at a visitor center, got some gas and checked into the hotel in the early afternoon.

I let Christopher nap while checking up on e-mail and such. Since he wasn’t too much in an eating mood, I opted out of plans to head to the Samoa Cookhouse and took myself to Rita’s Café & Taqueria. It was good, but that’s for a separate post. On the way back I picked up some cough drops, DayQuil and 7Up. Christopher stirred once and a while, mostly due to fits of coughing, before I put head to pillow.

While it wasn’t the most opportune of time thanks to some little viral bug, it was good to see Christopher for a bit. I also got to see some of the areas in which he’s been working. The photo to the right is of a beach where he and his CCC crew are charged with pulling European Beachgrass (Ammophila arenaria), an invasive weed that infests beaches in the Redwood National and State Parks. Christopher even amazed me with his newfound knowledge of invasive plants on California’s north coast.

We spent Sunday morning sleeping in, and later drove around a bit. I showed Christopher the Samoa Cookhouse and parts of Eureka, recalling the good times I had in college with few worries and despite even fewer dollars. We grabbed lunch at the

Fresh Freeze Drive-In, decent and authentic 1950’s burger joint. With the clouds seemingly threatening to release a deluge, I dropped Christopher off at the center (with instructions to get rest and recover), and plugged home into the GPS.

The drive home was interesting. On one stretch of the South Fork of the Eel River I saw an inflatable raft with six people in colorful PDFs struggling to move upstream…yes, upstream…in the swollen and muddy river. Insane, I thought, until I noticed a truck on the side of the road indicating that they were a swift water rescue team. On and off the rain came down hard enough to limit visibility as I played leapfrog with various cars with out of state license plates. It also became apparent to me, while passing through Willits, that only the things that matter less don’t change in a small town. With the exception of the Safeway, the only places that have kept their names are the carwash, the Laundromat, and the small convenience store/arcade (TnT), which I believe was frequented by my brother.

Two hundred and fifty-five miles later I was home.


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clear road home

Leaving family always leaves a bit of a hole in my stomach even if my mom does stuff me with pancakes and Lil’ Smokies. But it was time to head south, and by 9:30 a.m. Sean and I were on the road. It’s been a typical Washington day…gray with drizzle and rain here and there. Traffic has been minimal, so we’ve made good time. Just about noon and we’re about 14 miles from the Washington/Oregon border. In 24 hours we’ll be back in California.

After a night in Rogue River, we woke to sunshine and a clear road home. It was a good trip. Something that should happen more often.


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going “hot”

The sunny dispositions that Sean and I brought to the Pacific Northwest once again showed its power, as during 8:00 mass we could watch, through the large windows behind the altar at Holy Innocents Church, as the clouds parted and allowed the sun to shine through. A quick tour of town was included in the drive home after mass, though thankfully there as no quiz! The morning passed by with the reading of the newspaper, the watching of a football game and my meeting a neighbor who also happens to enjoy fishing (and makes a mean beef jerky).

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Then Mark spirited us off to a department range for another manner of manly activity. After an abbreviated but still through session on safety and strategy, we were given the opportunity to shoot a 9mm pistol. I would dare say that Sean and did very well consider our limited training and experience. With a break to let some officers qualify, we took the nickel tour of the precinct house, after which we watched a few more officers run through their “quals.” Soon we had our own lane again and practiced some paired groupings (sight, shoot and as soon as you sight again take a second shot) and double taps (sight and shot two shots as quickly as possible). All of our shots hit the target and most were center mass. Not too shabby for amateurs.

After spending more time than expected at the range, we met everyone (parents and Mark’s family) at Ixtapa for a hearty Mexican dinner. That was followed up my much wrestling among an uncle, father and cousin, as well as dessert. It was a nice way to spend our last night in Washington.

[Pictures from this trip can be found by clicking here.]


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“man time” in Washington

Call it the seasoning of age or attribute it to the wisdom that comes with the passing years, but I find myself increasing grateful of family making time for our visits. My brother “donated” his time (and my thanks to his wife for allowing it) to make himself and his family available to Sean and I during our time here, so Saturday we headed to his house for a morning visit with his family while we mulled over any man-bonding activities we might undertake.

We opted to head to the now traditional man movie and ended up taking over a single theater. Afterward, back at the house, we kept testosterone levels high by shooting various targets with an airsoft gun. We later met a next door neighbor and, after I got my video game fix (and seeming to amaze the neighbor’s kids that this old guy can play XBox pretty well), it was time for a great family dinner with mom and dad. And dinner was followed by three desserts.

(While it might sound like we didn’t do too much, isn’t that sometimes what a vacation is about: doing less? But even while we did less we had the opportunity to simple hang out, which I think often is underrated.)

Mom & Levi
Dinner prep!
Kaden
Mom & Levi
Mark planning somethigng…
The bros and baby Levi…
Karen jumping in.