Sticking around

I was asked if I would continue to write in my blog in the new year?  Absolutely was my only response.  I enjoy this, it has allowed me to express who I am and what I enjoy.  It has given me an outlet that I previously never had.

I want to move on from just a Blogger Platform into a picture platform as well.  I like showing off my snaps, and this place is a great place to do it.  I have had some recent interest in my flies, so I know I will have to get back into show-casing them.

There is just no reason to quit writing  or quit posting my thoughts.  This outlet is more of a release than than effort.

Using my Chest Pack

The chest pack has become my new favorite piece of fishing equipment.  Filling the vest has become part of my normal checklist.  Now instead of wondering if I have what I need.  Once I packed the initial necessities into the pack, I had room for all kinds of fun extras.  The pack is made for fly fishing and will be hugely successful when I start chasing fish with the long rod, but right now I have it filled with plugs and top water lures.

This is the stuff that I have my pack currently.  I had so much room left over after putting the initial round-up in it.  That I had to go buy some soft plastics, darn.  The pocket that has an insert for flies is removable, I'm assuming this so you can have your best lures ready to go.  I removed the foam insert and used that pocket to store all my plastics.

The pockets have so much room in them it's amazing.  I can organize everything and make sense of where everything is.  I am so grateful to finally have something like this.

After organizing the soft plastics I moved my lure-box and improvised lure box into the next pocket.  I was able to stuff an over-sized fly box into the middle pocket with no struggle.  The pocket has a pretty cool hinge on it too.  It allows me to open the pocket and create a small work table.  It's the coolest thing.  

The back flap has room for my hemo's, a bottle of water, some sunscreen and whatever else I want to stuff in there.  It organizes my crap and gives everything a nice, neat home.  

The little retractable clip is a great place to snap on a pair of clippers or your hemo's.  It depends on the day your having, if your switching lures a lot or if your popping fish off the line.  The clip will have more uses than non-uses.

The very front pocket, which was originally designed as a tippet control system, has a new use for chucking heavy metal.  I use it store my heavy tippet and my scent.  I always hated keeping that scent anywhere near my nose, now I have it way out in front of me away from my sniffer.  I just feed a small piece of leader through the zipper and I never have to open the flap.  

Thank you Dave.  Thank you making my fishing experience that much better.  I am looking forward to paying it forward.  My Fishpond Chest Pack is an awesome addition to my fishing paraphernalia.

Sleepless Ramblings of an insane mind

I'm pretty sure there were roofies in the Grasshoppers?  I woke up.  I was surrounded by Girl Scouts high on Crystal Meth, and I had a Green Sash as a gag...

They told me to keep quiet or they would tell the Cub-Scouts, I thought pine-wood derby races were gay.

Chest Pack

Wearing my winter fishing gear has severely limited my storage options.  In the warmer months all I do is stuff some paraphernalia in my cargo shorts and I am good to go.  Now with the water hovering around shock and the morning air holds a steady chill, I had to figure out some way to store my crap.  I had been stuffing all my accouterments into a belly pouch on my jacket.  No rhyme or reason, just a haphazard pile of junk in a pouch.

I could never find the stuff I was looking for, and it kind of took some of the fun out of changing lures or bait.  I hung up the fly rod for the time being and am focusing on slinging hard baits at the Ladyfish.  Some people call 'em garbage fish, I call 'em easy.  I found two areas of merging current that are thick with Lady's.  When I say thick, I mean every cast lands a fish.  Pulling in 100's of fish is tiring and not having your shit together makes for some pretty frustrating moments.

Over the holiday, I ran into a school of Lady's and Trout that was of biblical proportions.  I had a hunch about a boat lane that was recently dredged.  I knew the area had just been dug and I heard the lane was about 11 feet deep.  So I decided to walk the lane markers, and toss towards the far side and slowly reel either up or down the channel, not directly across it at a 90 degree angle.

Low and behold I was rewarded with a 27" Bull Trout on the first cast.  Now this is where things got a lil weird.  The lane and its depth housed both species, but at different depths within the column. I wasn't expecting there to be that many fish, in such a small area, all feeding and milling about, not bothering each other.  I would catch a glimpse every once in a while of a monster, but I never caught anything over 30".  I'm not even really sure what some of the shadows were?  At best I would think some of them were the Bull Red's that have been reported.

I caught my first fish at 7 a.m. just after low-tide.  High tide wasn't til 1:30, so I had 4 hours of wadeable water.  I got lucky as well with the boats, they didn't kick up any wakes over 6 inches.  I think the shock of some idiot standing out that far slowed them down?  I met one guy, (we'll call him Dave) he was a friendly guy for 8 a.m.

He cut his engine 100 yards up-stream from me and floated toward me yelling out how was the fishing, what was biting, and did I mind if he drown some bait?  I told him to drift in down stream of me and anchor off by my feet.  I knew he was gonna be a good guy when he cracked a beer and offered me one before he was within 50 feet of me.  This was a first.  He drifted next to me, passed me a beer and the bow-anchor-line and he set the stern anchor.  He was stationary and casting before I got my shit together and figured out I had made a new friend.

I put my rod on his bow and opened my can of MGD.  We introduced ourselves and had a quick laugh about the anchor and my foot.  It was nice to have something to stand on, the mud was sucking me down, and you don't lose a boot in the mud when your wearing waders.  I showed him what the fish were hitting, and what I thought was going on with the water column along with my idea of no 90 degree angle, and we were off.

After Dave caught his first 50 fish, he stopped and sat on the cooler.  He asked me," where my fishing vest was?"  I told him I didn't have one that wasn't for fly fishing.  He asked me if I had ever heard of Fishing packs before?  "Yep, heard of em, do not want to pay $100 bucks for something that holds bait."  That was when he did the damnedest thing.  He took his, emptied it, said I deserved it for letting him tie up on my honey-hole, and gave it to me.

Of course I bickered about taking it, but his reason on why I needed to take it was pretty similar to mine.  He told me to take it because I could have been a dick and not let him tie up.  I could have been rude, or crass, or purposely tried to keep him from enjoying drowning some bait.  He told me it was nice to see some idiot this far off shore, that wanted to share his secret spot; that and "I looked like an idiot digging through my kangaroo pouch looking for shit."  I agreed with that last part completely and threw the neck strap over my head and accepted the gift.

He pulled anchor and drifted the channel out catching big fish and whooping the whole way out of the small bay.  Dave hung out for maybe an hour-and-a-half, from 7:30-10?  But the whole experience was pretty sublime.  The randomness of the events, that far removed from "land", and coming home back to shore with a gift?  It's funny, even when I try to get away, try to put normalcy behind me and wander around areas that I really have no business.  I still am able to find, or somehow have decency find me.  I'm humbled by Dave and his easy nature, the pack he gave me will remind me of that every time I rig it.  Thank you Dave.

Tampa has a Zoo?

I have known about the Lowry Park Zoo since I moved to Tampa over 5 years ago.  My problem for all those years, was that I had some type of prejudice or something against it.  I screwed up.  I can't believe I deluded myself.  That place is great.  I mean honestly, the extended family and I spent a solid 7 hours there and no one got antsy. It was because of LivingSocial.com that we all had the time we had; so thank you LivingSocial.com.

We started off kinda slow, the critters were all sleeping and out of view and photograph range.  The Leopards were hiding, and some type of wild pigs were hiding, and some other things were doing their high-sun slumbering.  The Sloth Bear, oh the Sloth Bear, he was so funny the way he was all sprawled out and lounging in the sun.

The birds at the zoo is what got our attention.  The Lorikeets had a lot of personality and were a ton of fun.  My niece was having a blast feeding them, while my brother-in-law and my nephew were ducking, and covering.  They made quite the spectacle of themselves, and cracked me up.  My niece kept walking around them with cups of nectar I bought her.  The five-bucks-a-cup was a small price to pay to watch them squirm. Their photos were not near as cute as the birds.  Besides, I would have rather recorded their stupid behavior  than immortalize it in a photo.

The Lorikeets warmed us up for the Orangutans.  Those Orangutans were some goofy critters.  I couldn't get a good enough angle to get the ones hiding under boxes.  There were two goofballs that were playing some kind of game in the background.  There was another one that had a pink clothe that it used as a cape and headdress. The star of the show though was the juvenile.  The little one was swinging upside down in front of the crowd, switching ropes and running all over.  The whole family actually stayed in one spot and watched a while, it impressed the hell outta me.

Around the corner was a Sting Ray petting tank.  We have played with the Rays before at Sea World, but the niece and nephew had never seen anything like that before.  Their squeals were a bit too much for me to keep a straight face.  I bought them a bunch of shrimp just to watch them jump.

Feeding the Sting Rays wasn't enough for me.  No more than 300 feet from the tank was a Giraffe area.  I have a thing for long necks and they are no exception.  I blind-sided the kids so they didn't have chance to back out it.  They turned around and I handed them some lettuce.  My girlfriend giggled a bit as well, we all enjoyed feeding the big girl with long eyelashes.

Things being the way they are, circular and all that.  We ended the day with feeding and playing with more Wallaby's.  I had no idea there were Aussie animals at Lowry Park.  I mean they have Penguins and Wallaby's, what more do you need for a good time?

I have to say.  I made a mistake by not making the journey to Lowry Park.  If you have not been yet and you think something negative or have an excuse on why not to go.  Go join LivingSocial.com, get the 2 for 1 deal that's 24 bucks, and do it.  I do not regret the trip, in fact my nephew can't wait to come back for his birthday and pet the rays.  Thank you Lowry Park Zoo.

Busch Gardens

Thanksgiving this year was not a traditional holiday in my house.  I woke up Thursday at 5 and went fishing.  My brother-in-law is a prison guard and he was forced to work a 12 hour shift on Gobble-Gobble Day.  For me, it meant that I could screw around and do my own thing, my own way.  So, my own way is wading into my flats and losing myself.  I was lost til about 11 until my phone blew-up and I had to head home.  I was told a great surprise was waiting for my perusal.

It turned out my girlfriend bought season tickets for Busch Gardens/Sea World/Aquatica Parks.  It was a quick turn-around from a lazy day fishing to an active day walking.  I like surprises and season passes was surely a fantastic surprise.  Once I grabbed a shower and scraped the Ladyfish off, we were under way.  It had been 2 years since I was last in Busch Gardens and my return was well overdue.  The weather was perfect and the sun was high in the sky.

There were a few new attractions and a few new animals added since we were there last.  The Cheetah Hunt Roller-coaster is new as well as the Cheetah exhibit.  There were no lines to detract from the rides or the exhibits.  The longest wait was at Sheekra; 15 minutes was the wait time.  All the other rides were 5 to 10 minutes at best.  Thanksgiving turned out to be the best day for visiting the theme park.

The Orangutan Exhibit was perfect on Thanksgiving.  The sun was high, the sky was blue and the Red- Haired-Bi-Pods were in full swing (no pun intended).  The boys and girls put on quite a show for all of tourists.  Their antics and shenanigans had me transfixed for almost an hour.  I shot a quick video that just made me laugh.

The tigers as well were out showing off their colors.  They put on quite the show as well, walking up and down the waterfall, growling at the spectators, showing their teeth for the photographers.  I enjoyed watching them strut their stuff until I was told it was Wallaby time.

  

The Kangaroo and Wallaby exhibit rounded out our day at the Park.  You can hand-feed the little guys that are just so cute you want to take one home. We spent a good hour feeding and watching them be goofy.

When I knelt down to take a quick shot of the swan I spotted a garden we hadn't been to.  So on on our way out I grabbed a couple of quick shots of some pretty purple flowers. The gardens were just the slow wandering we needed before we left for the day.  It was great to be back at Busch Gardens again after a substantial hiatus.  I'm really looking forward to going back again and having some beer and pizza, now that the initial visit is out of the way.  Who knows, maybe next weekend will be a long deserved Sea World trip?

Griffis Sculpture Park

On a green hillside, in a forest, and on a pond; everywhere one looks in the Park there is beauty.  I have been going to Griffis since I was a child, some 30+ years ago.  When my family vacationed at Jellystone Park, we would drive past the strange figures in the field and the iron-flying-things.  It is one of those place that is irrevocably imprinted on my psyche for the remainder of my life.  I am not sure, but if I had to point to the time in my life that I first began to appreciate art, I would say the summer walks through the fields are the catalyst.

Every summer we would walk a different area and run around playing on the structures.  That's the great thing about this place.  Not only is the stuff cool, you are allowed to interact with it, experience it.  That was exactly what the creator Larry Griffis wanted the audience to do: Experience Art.  The park started off with 100 acres and now has over 425, as well as over 100 contributors to the experience.

Some of the pieces are recognizable as a natural thing, such as an insect, or an animal, a woman, or even an alien.  These easily recognizable objects are a great introduction, a seduction to the abstract and deeply meaningful creations hidden deep withing the park.  Try explaining sublime-steel-structures, tucked into fields, valleys and so on.  It's a tough sell to someone from the city, who is still being gently introduced to Appalachian life.  Yep, that's my girlfriend in the picture above.  I told her to experience the art, my descriptions could never do it justice.  She knows I have an eclectic collection of art and artists as friends.  Her barrage of questions were answered with a hoagie, a Coke and a smile.  Oh, yeah; this park is 3 hours from my hometown and I sprung it on her at breakfast the morning we went.

Her apprehension was immediately relieved when we pulled into the parking lot.  I had told her about the place for years, but she thought it was a bit too fantastic to be real.  We walked two of the fields on top of the hill above Ashford Hollow for about 2 hours.  Once we made our way to the bottom I pointed out how the hill was substantial and the only shade was in the trees.  I did this on purpose.  The reason was, the real funky stuff was in the trees.  I wanted her to get sucked in before I sprung the (fun stuff) on her.

The walk back to the car was great.  The light filtering through the trees was perfect.  The art is already powerful on its own, but the light and shadow that day heightened the experience.  I know it left an impression on my her.  As for myself,  the art I have seen for years seemed different that day.  It took on a new meaning for me that day, I even told her as much.  There's something special about sharing my childhood memories with her and creating new ones, that further enhance our story.  She looked at the pictures and described what she smelled, heard and felt.  Griffis sucks you in and casts a spell on you like no other place I have experienced.  There is a stillness there that can't be found in gardens, or parks, even some preserves.

The place had her hooked and I loved it.  She survived another adventure with me and came out liking the mountains and its people.  Every time I take her back to my hometown I try to take her to a special place, so that way maybe she will want to move North.  I'm (ABC) Always, Be, Closing.  I'm always trying to sell her on the benefits of living in a valley rather than a city.  I feel a bit like Sysophis but it's OK.  I'm just happy she indulges my ideas of a good time.