Truly Astounding Stunts!!!

Guys I must admit that I am not into Utube videos for a blog post but today is an exception, because when you say amazing this video clip tops all I have seen. One of my fishing buddies emailed me the clip today. He told me that I wouldn’t believe some of the stunts. After viewing it I can’t believe a human being can do some of the things that are shown here. Hope everyone has a great Christmas and Happy New year!!!

Top 10 Reasons Why my Favorite Fishing Hole is Special

Well, Dave has his top ten lists, so it’s time for Bill’s top ten reasons why my favorite fishing hole is special.

1.  The scenery is out of this world, something changes to enhance the beauty every time you are there.

2.  It always brings back some fabulous memories of fishing buddies and  nice fish landed

3. The weather seems to always be perfect when I am there and on the water

4. The water is always clean, clear, and fertile.

5.  I always catch fish there even on the worst days.

6.  My confidence level seems to hit a high when I am in this place

7.  If no lure or pattern is working I can always count on my old stand by lure to produce

8.  An abundance of wildlife is always a bonus

9.  Not a lot of fishing pressure

10. This place simply has that “it factor”

So there you have it. When you are out there on the water this winter, spring summer, and fall; you might think of a few more reasons why you lose sleep over that special place you can’t wait to get to at dawn.

Buying American Made Products--Are You In???

My last post dealt with purchasing some bargain fishing equipment. What I neglected to tell you guys that I was actually looking for Made in America fishing products. I knew I was going to follow up with this post. I did find some catfish bait made in the United States, but the other items were made you guessed it in China. One item was made in Japan. That post got me to thinking about the newscast the ABC Nightly News has been broadcasting for the past couple of months. They have been doing news segments on how one can help create jobs in this country by simply buying American Made Goods. An example of one of their segments recently was to spend 64.00 of your Christmas dollars on American Made products. That 64.00 would produce as many as 200,000 jobs in this country: just think about that. If the general population in this county would spend that amount for Christmas what an impact it could have for the unemployed. After watching the segments I find myself now being more conscious of things my wife and I buy. I am now actually checking to see where the items are made. Of course, a large majority is still made aboard, which in reality is just one of the problems that have caused the deficient problem we are facing now. ---not to mention the gridlock in congress---I checked my fishing tackle recently and found that I have only one fishing rod made in the US which was a crappie pole made in West Point Mississippi. All the rest was made in China. ABC News has been asking the question to the viewing audience are they in when it comes to buying American Made Products; well I am in. My question to all my fishing buddies out there is are you in?  I hope you guys will buy an American made product next time you are at your local outlet store. Who knows some of you might even do a post concerning the product you purchase. BUY AMERICA MADE PRODUCTS!!! 

Making the Case for the Okuma Fly Rod

Every once in while I like to a make an unexpected road trip. My wife was at our daughters today in Tennessee, so I decided I would make a trip to some of the sporting good outlets in Birmingham. My first stop was a place I seldom go which I like to call the overpriced club, Mark’s Outdoors. It has all the usual name brands fishing tackle, but a bit over budget for me. I also made a stop at Dick’s sporting goods, which has some fishing tackle but caters more to the outdoor and sporting goods enthusiast. Of course I stopped by the Bass Pro shop and waded through the crowds. Bass Pro is a great fishing and hunting outlet but I seemed to get somewhat overwhelmed when I am there because of the enormous selection of everything. I finally ended up at Academy Sports. I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular to buy but came across some great deals while I was there. One was an Okuma fly rod 8 ½ ft. 4/5 wt. with medium action. I really like the lightness of this rod, and the rosewood reel seat. The best part was the price, 35.00 clearance. I have used Okuma reels and micro light rods over the years and have never had a problem with their performance. So with that thought in mind I bought the rod. I know I needed another fly rod like a dog needs ticks, but it was such a great deal I just couldn't pass it up. Another item I found was Lake Fork Fishing Shirts by Magellan.  I really like these shirts because of the vents in the back and the large storage pockets and clips hooks on the front. I bought a couple last year and was impressed.  These were 12.00 bucks clearance in the store but 17.00 on the website. I paid 25.00 last year for the same shirt. So I purchased a couple short sleeves. Of course there were all the clearance items on flies, lures, reels, tippets and a host of other items. Academy seems to always have an abundance of clearance items. So to make my point I left there with some shirts, rod, and few flies tippet and a couple of leaders that my wife decided would be Christmas for me, which suited me fine. Sometimes guy’s road trips don’t involved landing fish.

REACHING THAT 100 FOLLOWERS MARK!!!!

A couple of days ago I reached the number 100 fisherman who joined up with Fishing Through Life. It just seemed like yesterday I started playing around with the blogging scene. I really never thought that I would get anyone to respond to any of my nonsense, and was really surprised when I got a few replies after my first couple of posts. I started blogging responding to other posts.  I continued that pattern for at least a month before I created my own blog. I can remember how cool I thought it was when I actually got someone to leave a comment on my first post. That first post got me hooked. This has become my way to communicate with some of the best fishermen in the world. I have learned so much from all you guys about fly fishing since I started that first post. I would like to thank all of you who have responded to my post over the past couple of years and most important all those who joined up with Fishing Through Life. I considered all of you my fishing buddies and know I can count on all of you for great fishing information anytime. I actually feel like I know all of you personally because we all have that one thing in common FISHING!!!  

Thanksgiving And All That Food

I thought I would give everyone a chance to digest and absorb all those calories before I did this piece. You know where I am going here, that day we all love to stuff our faces with as much fats and carbohydrates, as we can. Thanksgiving is probably the one day throughout the year we throw out the rule book when it comes to eating. I can remember growing up as a child my Mom would always cook up an astonishing Thanksgiving meal each year. She always looks forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas, because that was her chance to show all of us how much she loved us, and that was through food, where she always proved her point. Thanksgiving and of course Christmas is a time for family and friends to come together and reminisce, and yes enjoy good food. Our family did that very thing on Thanksgiving, only with a different twist this time. My wife decided she wanted to enjoy the day without having to prepare all the fixings, so we all had our dinner at the Cracker Barrel. The meal was a feast to say least. For 9.00 the meal consisted of sliced turkey, and ham, with the dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, sweet potatoes, and hot biscuits, rolls, or cornbread. The sweet tea came with the meal as did a huge slice of pumpkin pie with a whip cream topping. You just can’t beat a meal like that even if you are sitting there thinking, how many pounds am I adding to the waistline here? Now I will spend the next two weeks in the gym trying to work off those fat calories I stuffed in on Thursday. On well it’s the holidays enjoy!!  

Sipping Trout Below the Dam at Smith Lake

I have been waiting for two weeks to get to fish the tailrace below the dam at Smith Lake. The constant flow below the dam has been off for much of the month. The engineers at the dam are installing a new pump system that will produce a constant flow 24/7 instead of the off and on again flow that has been occurring for the past 6 months. My son, son-in-law and I all made a short trip to the tailrace Saturday evening and found the engineers had solve the problem and the water was moving perfect for some mountain like trout stream fishing. The water temperature was around 55 and there was not much of a rise. We landed one each for the afternoon, using the size 18 dry gnat and a 22 midge. The trout were feeding at the surface, but it was not the aggressive takes one would see this time of year. It was more like a sipping motion. I have seen this before and have never been able to figure out how and what to use to get the take, when this is happening. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see the trout and not be able to get any takes. We tried a number of patterns but none seen to produce on a consistent basics. True we all landed one trout each, but it seems in this particular case the trout know when the pattern is fake and the action is over. I do know that fish turn on and off as far as feeding cycles is concerned so I guess this was one of those off cycles. Thanks for stopping by today and I hope everyone has a save and hearty Thanksgiving. 

  

Nice bow on the 3 wt. This trout had some width to it. After the picture it swim off to fight another day

My son off in the distance right after he landed his trout for the evening

This little guy was helping us get our gear together, of course he let us know it was not fair he didn't get to go.